Tom Rohrer - Success Works Coaching

Tom Rohrer
PhD, MFT

Mailing Address
1250-I Newell Ave., No. 225
Walnut Creek, CA 94596

925-595-6433
Email:drtom@success
workscoaching.com
Web:www.successworks
coaching.com and
www.tomrohrer.com

As a performance coach and the owner of Success Works Coaching, Tom works with individuals, groups and businesses on a range of human performance issues.

Tom will help you get clarity on your goals and provide strategies to achieve them, while keeping a balanced and healthy lifestyle. Coaching will help you increase your happiness, health and success.

Through coaching, Tom will help you uncover your cognitive, emotional and psychological obstacles, develop your best personal structure and the strategies and tools for developing your optimum performance.

Focuses:
  * Building Resilience
  * Authentic Happiness
  * Conflict Resolution
  * Public Speaking
  * Sports Performance
  * Test/Evaluation Anxiety

For more information about Success Works Coaching visit www.success
workscoaching.com and
www.tomrohrer.com

925-595-6433
Email:drtom@success
workscoaching.com

October 2010

In This Issue

Decision making can be fraught with uncertainty, risk, and conflict. Is it any wonder, then, that some of us put off making difficult decisions until the last minute forces our hand? To assess your decision-making process -- and get ideas for how to make more intelligent decisions -- take the quiz below. As you read through the ezine, please don't hesitate to call if I can help.

How Intelligent Is Your Decision Making?
Beyond the Box
Relevant Reading
Today's Quote

How Intelligent Is Your Decision Making?

We make decisions every day. While simple decisions require a fairly straightforward decision-making process, complex decisions usually require more effort to properly deal with challenges such as uncertainty, risk, alternatives and consequences.

Because of the possibility of conflict and unwanted outcomes, making decisions can be stressful. Being aware of your strengths and weaknesses, and those of your team, helps alleviate that stress, and puts you on the road to taking decisive and intelligent action.

To determine whether your decision-making skills are as sharp as they could be, answer True or False to the following questions.

1. Prior to making decisions I ensure that I have established clear objectives that identify the desired outcome.

2. I'm not afraid to make crucial distinctions such as: "Is this decision efficient and effective?"

3. When a group decision is required, I know where to find the appropriate stakeholders and how to approach them to ensure they are represented accurately.

4. I make every effort to create a supportive environment in which debate, discussion and scrutiny of potential decisions can occur.

5. The overall objective is to make the best decision for the situation; the goal isn't to compete with colleagues or find the "perfect" answer.

6. Built into my decision-making process is the awareness and acceptance that the unforeseen will occur, and I have taken that into account without unnecessarily holding up the process.

7. I think in terms of responding rather than reacting. That approach will help to circumvent any problems that current decisions may create in the future.

8. I'm aware of my bigger purpose and use that insight to determine if the decisions I make reflect that purpose.

9. When decisions lead to unexpected or undesired outcomes, instead of criticizing, I ask, "What have I learned from this experience and how can I improve?"

10. Before making a decision I ask, "Is this choice in alignment with my values? Is this me?"

11. I make the distinction between decisions based on inner perception vs. impulse.

12. When I make a decision based on a "gut feeling," it comes not only from a feeling, but from my entire core of inner wisdom, experience and knowledge.

13. I want my life filled with people, circumstances and objects that reflect the real me, and my decisions reflect that.

14. I rarely second guess my instinct -- when it feels right I go with it.

15. Not making a decision is a decision in itself, and sometimes the best course of action is taking no direct action at all.

16. With every decision comes an element of risk. Although it can be difficult to consistently predict outcomes, I use intellect as well as emotion to mitigate that risk.

If you answered true to 10 or more statements, you are a fearless and astute decision maker. If fewer, you may wish to explore your process of decision making. Please don't hesitate to call.

The following questions are designed to broaden perspectives, to open vistas, to widen the lens. There is no one right way to approach them. You can journal about them, talk to friends, create art, ponder them while driving, work out to them--whatever helps you explore "outside the box."

How would you characterize your decision-making process? Is it sound?
If the results of a decision aren't what you'd hoped they be, how you do typically respond (or react)?
As you read the article, did any of your past decisions come to mind? If so, is further action necessary, such as forgiving yourself for less-than-favorable results?

Relevant Reading

Judgment: How Winning Leaders Make Great Calls, by Noel M. Tichy and Warren G. Bennis

How Great Decisions Get Made: 10 Easy Steps for Reaching Agreement on Even the Toughest Issues, by Don Maruska

Why Decisions Fail: Avoiding the Blunders and Traps That Lead to Debacles, by Paul C. Nutt

Today's Quote

"If you limit your choices only to what seems possible or reasonable, you disconnect yourself from what you truly want, and all that is left is a compromise."
~Robert Fritz, author