Information Over Load

Information Over Load

I love technology.  Technology has improved my life greatly, especially considering my income is completely related to technology.  There is a downside to all this technology though and I don't think that we may even be able to scratch the surface on how all of this will affect our future.  When a pharmaceutical company comes out with a new drug, it must first go through rigid testing to find out how that drug may adversely affect us.  There may be some benefit to analyze our technology this way as well.

Facebook.com, MySpace.com, Linkedin.com, and Twitter.com are some fairly recent examples of new and innovative Web 2.0 type applications that are having a profound affect on our society.  Take facebook, my daughters are constantly on facebook, they chat with their friends, send them messages, post pictures.  If you ever want to know what is going on in their life, you don't need to sit down at the dinner table, simply log onto facebook and you will find out everything.  My point in all this is that today, there is a ton of information out there for anything and anyone.  We are constantly being bombarded by information, status updates, profile updates, picture updates, tweets, twitters, whatever.  This presents a new problem moving forward.  

In the past, businesses had a difficult time making decisions due to not having enough information.  Business Intelligence is around because companies need access to crucial information that was buried deep down in their computer systems and again, the problem that was typical was that they could not get to the information, therefore, limiting the amount of data you had access to.  I think we can all agree that technology has come to a point that we are really no longer limited by it.  We are now limited by the processing power of the human brain.  I believe it was in the book Good to Great where author Jim Collins wrote in one of the chapters about a brokerage firm and how they were able to maximize the effectiveness of their brokers.  They did a study to find out what the maximum number of contacts could handle without letting any fall through the cracks...these contacts would include both actual clients and prospects.  You see the brokers would spend hours and hours on the phone, making hundreds of dials a day...they are limited to the number of times they could dial the phone and reach the person they were intending to reach.  Factor in time for dial, leaving voice mail, missing a returned call, calling prospects and clients back calculated to 300 contacts in their 'books'.  At the time I read this I was the IT Director at a major investment relations firm.  So what did I do?  Using the data I had been collecting on our call center, I wrote a BI application to analyze the results that Jim Collins found and I was able to verify the information and make the appropriate recommendations to our sales.

Similar to brokers only having enough cycles to handle a book (list of prospects and clients) of about 300, information consumers only have enough bandwidth and brain power to handle only so much information.  For example, think of the CEO in your company.  He has information coming to him constantly.  It may be human resources related, sales related, operations related, production/manufacturing related, marketing related, merger and acquisition related, external economics related, personal/family related.  Our brains can only handle so much at a time, and we cannot upgrade to a brain clustered environment.  All of this information is competing with each other.  So the question is how much information can we handle before we reach information overload and start blocking out things....or information starts falling through the cracks.  I was once consulting with a company on developing their web presence and when we were discussing the home page of their site, I asked, what I thought at the time was a relatively simple question, "What is the most important thing you want to point out about your company?"  The answer they gave me was frustrating.....they said,"everything".  This resulting in a hours long discussion about, if everything stands out then nothing stands out.  It reminds me of a despair.com saying, "You are special, just like everyone else".

What does this long rant have to do with BI?  Well, BI is presenting information that is simply just noise among noise.  It is information that is fed to whichever information consumer we deem to require it and we expect the end user to determine it's importance.  Here is what we need...we need a system that can automatically inform us in a manner that will give it a larger priority over all the other noise and in a way we understand and respond to.  This is where technology innovation has to meet creativity.  Stephen Few has some good examples and blogs about meaningful ways to present data in an efficient and concise manner.

The purpose of this post is not to give you a solution to this problem but rather present a discussion point on how BI can help become a filter for all of this noise.

Do you know your data?

Some things never cease to amaze me. BusinessIntellienge (according to Wikipedia) has been around for over 50 years. Despite this fact, all too often companies are inadequately providing the basic foundation for Business Intelligence. Here is one small example….knowing what data you use to make decisions. Whether it is a government organization, public company, or private company, they typically know what information they need to make their most important decisions, at least from a business perspective, however, from a data perspective, IT typically has very little insight into what data is actually being used.

Let’s check out a typical example. I have seen countless times where companies are implementing new systems that require major database changes. Well, when these changes are made, IT typically has a very difficult time determining exactly what data is being used, by what reports, by which users, not to mention how many times. Now if you think about it, this is very important information. In our society now, it is easy to get lost in data, there are so many sources of information, such as this blog, news sites, facebook, myspace, linkedin, drudgereport. I think we all can agree that the problem is not if the information exist, it is, can we find it and if we can, can we connect to it. So why are the questions about the data so important?

What data is being used? By whom? How often? This is important, especially when implementing solutions such as a data warehouse. Data Warehouse implementation can be very costly and often fail even after spending hundreds of thousands of dollars above what the budget required. Many of these failures can be prevented by the ability of knowing the answer to these questions. I have been working on a project where I an organization has to transfer 200 reports that are on their legacy system and have recreate them using Crystal Reports on their new ERP system. The process is to analyze each report, find out what fields were used to create that particular report and then look to see if the data was converted to the new ERP system. What sense does this make? All of these reports are considered mission critical by this organization, so my question is why is a field in a report that is mission critical no longer available in the new ERP system. A best practice approach could have been taken here before the data conversion process if the organization new which reports were mission critical and were able to generate a report that listed all the fields within those reports.

While I was at Information Builders, Inc. using WebFOCUS, they had a fantastic product called Resource Analyzer that at a click of a button, you would have access to hundred of reports that gives you the ability to analyze what data is being used, by whom, how often. Not only that, but it could also provide you with some what if analysis…for example…what if I removed this field from our database? What reports would that affect? What users would be affected? I don’t know about you but before I make any major changes I definitely want to make sure I know the impact it will have on upper management.

Be your own Gartner! What BI tools have you used and how do YOU rank them?

This particular post is really to solicit comments and get an interaction of BI professionals and users on their experience with BI tools and how they rank them. If you have ever used a BI tool, please comment on which ones and the pros and cons you have for each of them. Constructive feedback only, this is not meant to be a vendor bashing opportunity or a vendor promoting opportunity and those type of comments will not make it. Just plain old honest feedback.

At the very least, simply fill out the survey to the right ----------->

Five Critical Criteria to start your BI Initiative

1.       Desire Intelligence

This may sound like a given, right?  Well, not necessarily.   Often times I have seen companies approach a BI initiative simply because it is a current industry trend, other CIO’s are doing it so why don’t we.  If our competitors are doing it then we need to stay competitive and do it as well.  WRONG!  Like many things in life, doing something because you feel like you feel like you are forced to will only result in a half hazard attempt and ending in a costly mistake.  So the first step, the first requirement to start a BI initiative is to desire intelligence.  You must crave it, want it, need it, hunger after it, you get the message.  What does that really mean?  You must have a passion for improving your organization through the gathering and analyzing data and applying intelligence in order to turn that data into usable, actionable, priceless information.

Example - While working for a BI vendor, we had a new branch manager come in and he started to immediate gather and analyze information on the current branch he just acquired.  Looking at contracts that were in place, looking at opportunities that were in the pipeline and most importantly looking at the employees.  All this to ensure that this branch would be successful.  During my interview with him, he mentioned to me that he was unsure of what to think about me because I did not have a long history of selling enterprise level software and as a sales engineer that is important.  Well after about an hour of discussion, he told me that he knew that I would be successful because I was extremely passionate about Business Intelligence and helping our customers achieve success.  He was less concerned at that point about what I have done in the past because he was confident of what I will do in the future.  This is an example of how we should approach BI, like the branch manager, come into the project with the desire to learn and analyze the data, recognize passion and don’t let the past be a stumbling block…we will get more to that point in criteria #3.

2.       Know your Business and your Industry

Okay, now I may sound like I am contradicting myself because earlier I said that you shouldn’t go after BI just because it is a popular thing to do or your competitors are doing it.  In context that is true, the entire process should start with desire to make your organization more intelligent.  Another thought here is, “Of course I know my business”.  Fair enough but many times when an organization is implementing some type of Business Intelligence solution, it is lead by the IT department.  While the IT group in your organization may be very familiar with your business and industry, it is only secondary to their knowledge of technology.  Those running the business, those responsible for the primary activities of the revenue generating functions of your business are really the ones who should lead these types of projects.  Without a business sponsor, the project is surely on a path of failure.

3.       Forget about limitations

Another critical reason for these types of initiatives to be driven by the business and not IT is it is much easier for the business to forget about limitations.  Business Intelligence is all about innovation, which I will be blogging about in the coming week (innovation that is).  A major adversary of innovation are limitations.  By first taking into consideration our limitations, we automatically limit the possibilities and success of our solutions.  If IT were driving this type of project, they would automatically be biased by technology limitations.  So know your thinking, “What good is it to come up with an idea that is impossible, that just wastes time and money.”  Oh contraire mon fraire, you see as humans we always limit ourselves by what we know.  Just because we do not know how to do it doesn’t mean it cannot be done.  I learned this lesson the hard way; I was the IT Director for a company whose CEO was constantly coming up with impossible ideas.  In the beginning, the phrase, “We can’t do that, that is impossible” was a common phrase being thrown around.  After repeating that over and over and after reading Bill Gates book “Business at the speed of thought”, I realized that I was too quick to make this statement.  This realization helped me create many solutions at that company that was years in advanced of what was commercially available, and believe it or not, at a fraction of the cost.  It is a natural human propensity to limit ourselves by our own knowledge.

On the business side, make sure you do not think also in terms of what is available, don’t limit yourself to knowledge you know is within your industry but rather information that may be outside your industry but has a direct or indirect affect on your business.  For example, I was working with a prospect on a potential solution, when learning their process for forecasting, I learned that they use over 25 different variables in order to forecast their product manufacturing.  They were able to look beyond their history, so in other words, they did not just look at past performance but rather measured that performance against other variables to establish a relationship and conversely apply that relationship toward future trends of those variables, for example consumer confidence, gasoline prices, new home sales, all of these examples require data that is most likely not controlled by your organization but by leveraging this type of out of our boundaries data you can make your organization much more intelligent.

4.       Don’t forget what you learned in grade school

I know you learned a lot of basic stuff in grade school but here I am referring to more specifically your science class, remember, the one Ms. Wilson taught, the one about the scientific method.  Just in case you do not remember, here they are (http://www.sciencebuddies.org/science-fair-projects/project_scientific_method.shtml) :

a.       Ask a Question

b.      Do your Research

c.       Construct a Hypothesis

d.      Test your Hypothesis

e.      Analyze your data and draw a conclusion

f.        Communicate your results

Following this method will help you form what your solution should be.

5.       Break requirements up into must have and nice to have

The “Communicate your results” in the scientific method actually makes up this portion of the criteria of success.  You must document everything you have learned up until this point in order to gain support for your new BI initiatives.  This information will be vital in generating expected ROI.  This document will also be vital in the next phase of your BI implementation which is selecting a technology vendor.  In the coming week I will outline some guidelines in selecting a technology vendor, and you may be surprised by what I say.

My New Blog

Just to let everyone know. This will be my first and final announcement of a new blog I have started...it is my personal blog to cover subject ranging from religion to politics....hmmmm...very controversial huh.

Here it is ----> http://arubawayne2.blogspot.com/

Success comes IF

My kids had to memorize this poem for school. That was the first time I heard it and I thought it was probably one of the most powerful poems I have ever read.


IF - by Rudyard Kipling

If you can keep your head when all about you Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,But make allowance for their doubting too;If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,Or being hated, don't give way to hating,And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;If you can meet with Triumph and DisasterAnd treat those two impostors just the same;If you can bear to hear the truth you've spokenTwisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,And lose, and start again at your beginningsAnd never breathe a word about your loss;If you can force your heart and nerve and sinewTo serve your turn long after they are gone,And so hold on when there is nothing in youExcept the Will which says to them: 'Hold on!'

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,' Or walk with Kings - nor lose the common touch,if neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,If all men count with you, but none too much;If you can fill the unforgiving minuteWith sixty seconds' worth of distance run,Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,And - which is more - you'll be a Man, my son!

2008 Election - The Most Important Issue

With the election in full swing, I wanted to make clear that this election has only ONE important issue that must be addressed, everything else depends on this one issue. What issue is this? It is NATIONAL SECURITY. We can spend all day debating whether or not we should have government healthcare (socialized healthcare), fair tax, abortion rights, etc, however, one important factor is that there is no need depating any of these issues if we have no country!

Some may think, wow Wayne, that is quite alarming and that is just a scare tactic. For all of you that think this I challenge you to read Glenn Beck's new book, An Inconvenient Book.

Saddam's Hanging

Saddam Hussein was executed a couple of days ago and there are is a video of it. Several month's ago I would have rejoiced in the death of Saddam but my outlook seems to be different now that it has actually happened. Most people will read this and say WHAT! But let me explains my points:

1. Do I think Saddam got what he deserved? Of course, he was an evil man. He killed many people and was a savage. He idolized Hitler and got 100% what he deserved. I do think justice was served.

2. Do I think there was a better way to server justice? Not really, I believe in the death penalty and so I believe the punishment fit the crime.

3. So why are you not happy? Well I not only think of Saddam as a tyrannical dictator responsible for the death of hundreds of thousands of people but I also think of him as a soul. I am not casting judgement for it is not my place to do so but rather God's, however, based that he went down without any "change of heart", his soul was lost. I don't think Christians should rejoice whenever a soul has been lost. We can rejoice that he cannot kill or hurt anyone anymore but we also grieve for the loss of a soul.

At the end of the day, the death of Saddam is bitter sweet. I would imagine that it would be more sweet to me if he had a direct impact on my life such as killed one of my family members however I would hope that I would remain compassionate for those that are lost.

1 Year WOW

It has been almost a year since I have posted here on my blog and it is about time that I reconvene on posting. Many things have changed since I last posted here on my blog. So first I would like to catch everyone up.

1. Employment. I was the IT Director for an Investor Relations firm however, do to the inadequacy of the upper management to develop a culture that fosters innovation, I decided to make a move to a company that I have always wanted to work for. This company is one of the largest private software development companies in the US and has been around for over 30 years. They have always been ahead of the curve in technology and foster a culture that promotes innovation and free thinking. What is the company? Information Builders, Inc. www.informationbuilders.com

2. My wife and I experienced the birth of our 4th child (and first son) and additionally, we found out several weeks ago that my wife is pregnant with our 5th (and final) child.

3. I graduated last month with my Master's in Business Administration degree (MBA)

One might be asking at this point why did you leave your blog for so long and what made you come back?

Why I left - Life happened! I got a new job that required much time in training, travel, and etc. Additionally I was finishing my Master's degree.

Why I am back - I heard a study today of those that give to the less fortunate and the summary of results are as follows:

• Republicans are more generous than democrats: Most democrats would explain this by saying of course, because they have more money but if you actually look at it from a percentage basis democrat's probably give more. WRONG! The study was done on a percentage basis of giving compared to income which brings me to the next point.
  
• Republicans income that were the most generous were significantly less the the democrats that were less generous.

So here is my question to the democrats:

If democrats are suppose to be "for the poor, less fortunate, party for the people", why are you making more money than the republicans but giving less to the people you supposedly represent?

Above and Beyond the Call of Duty

Customer service can make or break your organization. People will pay a premium just to be treated extra-ordinary and they will continue to utilize your service for this treatment. At the end of the day, customers can always find another company willing to provide them with the products and services they are looking for, it is up to us to provide them with this extra-ordinary service to keep them using our products and services.

Disney, 1982

My family is originally from Aruba, and every year, our parents would take us to Disney World. Back then, my most favorite cartoon character had been Donald Duck, I always loved his feisty attitude. Before we left to go on this trip, I had set out to contact Donald Duck and tell him I was his biggest fan so I preceded to write a letter to hand him in the grand parade at Disney. Five days later, the time has come, I am sitting on the curb in the magical place called Disney World, watching my childhood fantasies dance before my eyes in the magical Disney parade, just waiting for Donald Duck to dance by so I can hand him my carefully crafted letter. Then across the street, there he his, the one and only Donald Duck. I yelled, "Donald" to no avail, he was not able to hear me. This was a crushing blow to a 6 year old, as I sat down with my head in my hands, then, out of no where, a loyal Disney employee that walks the parade with a broom and a dustpan, picking up garbage and such. He asked me what was the matter and I told him I had a special letter for Donald Duck, he told me to give it to him and he would make sure that he got it straight to Donald Duck.

One month past and I was back in Aruba, wondering if Donal Duck ever got my letter when my mother called me into the house, "Wayne, come in, you have mail!" So I went inside and was greeted with a large envelope that was addressed to "Mr. Wayne Johnson" coming from Orlando, FL, but not mentioning on the envelope, exactly who send it. I opened it and behold, it was a letter from Donald Duck, and an autograph picture.

AMAZING! An employee who took pride in the company he worked for, whose job was to walk through the park and pick up garbage, made a lifetime memory for a kid. And that kid is now using that example in training others on how to provide extra-ordinary customer service. That janator knew what it took, and Disney back then knew what kind of culture to create that type of commitment.

• What can your company do to foster that type of environment?
  
• Do you go the extra mile, performing tasks that might not neccesirally be "your job", simply to provide an extra-ordinary experience for your customers?

Costs that are difficult to quantify

Today I had a good discussion with a fellow employee whom I was explaining the hidden costs in organizations that are extremely difficult to quantify. I call these costs "soft costs". Soft costs are costs that are difficult to put an amount on but that are real. Here is an example:

There are two divisions in a company, each division run by a different manager. Division A has 50 employees while division B has 100. Both departments utilize the human resource department which is a cost center to the company. The HR department handles all employee relations such as hiring, firing, handling complaints, etc. for all the departments in the company. One way to distribute the cost of the HR department is to equally distribute it among each employee, if the HR costs $150k to run and there are 150 employees, which would amount to $1,000 per employee. So division A would expense $50,000 toward HR and division B would expense $100,000 toward HR.

Here is where things become hard to quantify. The manager of division A has a high turn-over rate which requires HR to spend a considerable time in hiring new employees. HR has determined that they spend about 50% of the time on division A because of this. So division A actually has $75k of expense, they are not realizing the extra $25k expense and division B is expensing $25k too much. This fact makes us realize that division A is painting a picture that they are more profitable than they really are and division b is not getting credit for being even more profitable.

WHAT IS THE COST OF A BAD MANAGER? It is hard to quantify but definitely has long ranging implications.

FINAL THOUGH

Costs involve much more than raw materials, shipping, taxes, etc. Costs involve the actions of managers and the company, attitude in the organization. Managers need to take a deeper look at the cost of organizational behavior and its impact to the bottom line.

High Probability Selling

Have you ever wished you only called on those people who were going to buy your product? Think about how effective you would be. To have outstanding sales you must first be able to identify the best audience. Your audience will fall into 4 categories:

Group #1 (Wayside) – They are no more ready to buy your product than fly to the moon. You already know their profile so don’t waste anytime here.

Group #2 (Stony) – This group acts interested but after you leave, they quickly lose interest. Their interest is shallow. You can recognize them on the first call because you were unable to find any real “pain” (revelation of their need). They may be nice people but will not come through with a commitment.

Group #3 (Thorny) – These prospects appear to be much more promising. They have evident needs, but are caught up in substitute solutions that drain their cash, time and energy, thereby preventing you from reaping any significant results with them.

Group #4 (Good) – This group of prospects are the ones who have genuine need, are willing to admit it, and are prepared to take action if and when a reasonable plan is offered to them.

While it is impossible to never call on someone who is in Group 1 through 3, only present your product solution to Group #4. Presenting to Groups 1 through 3 is being ineffective with your time.

To be even more effective, you can target your top twenty in Group #4. Experienced sales reps know it can take twice as long to make a thousand-dollar sale to a small sized customer than it does to make a twenty-thousand-dollar sale to a larger customer.

Exercise 1

1.1 Create a profile for each of your Groups that relate particularly to your industry.

1.2 Create a profile for the top 20 in Group #4.

1.3 Take a look at your most successful sales calls. What did they look like? What did they have in common? What was it about your product/service that they liked?

No Quotas

As mentioned in my previous post, I am reading the Jack Welch book. Today I would like to discuss his performance evaluation strategy that he implemented at GE.

Everyone falls into one of three groups:

A People - These people are leaders, top performers, energetic, and can execute. These people make up 20% of your team.

B People - These people are very diligent and have great potential to be an "A" person. These people make up 70% of your team.

C People - These people are underperformers, do not have potential to be an "A" let alone a "B" person. These people make up 10% of your team.


Here is the falicy. The managers at GE are required to put 20% of their team in A, 70% of thier team in B and the bottom 10% of their team in C. The C people are let go. The problem here is that they are being compared to only their team. It is quite possible that someone rated a C on one team may very well be a B or even an A on another team. Besides that, if a team is full of A people, that is too bad, managers must select 10% of the team as C. What would your organization look like if 10% of your workforce is cut every year because of a quota that must be met?

I do agree with much of what he says but by putting a quota onto letting people go is never good for morale.

Jack Welch - Straight from the Gut

I was in the dollar general store in my town shopping for some prank gifts for a family members' 30th birthday party and I saw Jack Welch's book there, I couldn't resist picking it up for only a buck. Today's topic will be based on what Jack calls his basic management beliefs, behind his beliefs (which are bolded) are my comments about that particular belief:

1. Competing hard to win. I believe in this statement, if we do not compete hard, we will not win and we chance everything to luck.

2. Facing reality. If we do not face reality we will slowly dig a grave for ourselves in using ignorance for our shovel.

3. Motivating people by alternately hugging and kicking them. WHAT, "kicking", while I understand what he means by kicking, I would hardly use that word to describe it, maybe pushing or stretching. I we are too aggressive we will "kick" them right out of the company.

4. Setting stretch goals. It is very important to set goals that are sitting just on the other side of "things I have never done" other wise you will find yourself standing on the shores of mediocrity.

5. Relentlessly following up on people to make sure things get done. This is ridiculous, all this means is micro managing. If I have to relentlessly follow up with people then I have the wrong people on my team.

At the end of the day, Jack Welch ran a successful organization at GE using the basic management beliefs stated above.

Predictable

I have read many books and articles relating to leadership and have yet to see any one of them talk about this attribute. Predictable. A Leader needs to be predictable. Those who follow a leader need predictability. Why?

1. People need to know what your expectations are and you must act in a way that predict those expectations. If your expectations are to reach a certain objective and that objective has been met, you should predictably give praise for that accomplishment.

2. Predictability gives way to direction. When a leader is predictable, followers know what to expect and know where they are going. The unknown presents a very scary picture.

Without any predictability, your followers will constantly be questioning their performance, your view of their performance and your response to their performance. Those who have a bi-polar tendencies will be destroyed as a leader because of their inability to be predictable to their constituents. Think about it even in government, in this last election. No matter who you liked, one things for sure, President Bush is predictable, and in the end, that is what helped him win. People know what to expect. Unpredictability bring unknown expectations from the followers which is a good way to have no followers.

Reflection Point for Leadership

As my previous post mentioned, I am reading the book, "The Leadership Challenge", the authors studies show the following characteristics to be CRUCIAL in being a leader, everyday I am being convinced more and more how true this is. These are top four crucial characteristics:

1. Honesty (Credibility)

2. Competent

3. Forward-Looking

4. Inspiring

Honesty Essential in Leadership

I am reading a new book, recommended by a high level manager for Universal Studies, called The Leadership Challenge, by Kouzes and Posner. Just after reading the very first few pages, it really became very clear to me the importance of HONESTY in leadership, and I capitalize it because of how important it really is.

Other words that would also be considered in the HONESTY category are, integrity, ethical and moral. Wow, simple yet absent in very many aspiring leaders. If you are leading, you must actually have followers. The followers have to have a compelling reason to allow you to lead them. Sure there may be reasons like you are a successful innovator but without TRUST, they will not follow. Followers trust based on their leaders HONESTY. So leaders really need to reflect on several points;

1. Do you show your followers what you stand for (this not necessarily being religion but more like the ethical treatment of employees, how you perceive the importance of your employees, etc.).

2. Are your actions in line with your words? Do you walk your talk?

If not, beware, your leadership role is soon ending. Those who we lead require the basic need of TRUST, which comes from the demonstration of HONESTY.

5 Attributes to becoming a Successful Innovator

1. Be comfortable with change

2. Be clearly directed

3. Be thorough

4. Be a participated manager

5. Be Persistant

Following these attibutes will help lead you to be a successful innovator.

Making Better Decision

I am writing on this topic based upon reading in the latest edition of Harvard Management Review Publication. They interviewed author Paul Nutt, a management professor from Ohio State University. Looking back at the experience of both others and my own, and based on information in this article, here are some keys to making better decisions as to increase the odds of being successful.

First and foremost, everyone makes wrong decisions and the purpose of this article is not to tell you the secret of always making the right decision, there is no secret. These suggestions, however, will help you minimize the chance of making the wrong decision.

There is not one shortcut to success but millions that lead to disaster.

One of the biggest problems in making decisions is for the decision maker to try and make a quick decision, often as quickly as possible. If you put unrealistic time frame on decision making, you are limiting your options and increasing your odds for failure

Increase your Option

The more options you look at to make your decision, the more chances you have to make the right decision. Without examing an array of options, how can you be sure that you are not only making the right decision but also the best decision.

Motives in Motion

What is your motivation, are they self-centered, are they inline with what the goal of what the decision is trying to accomplish. This requires brutal honesty with one's self.

Ask and Listen to Stakeholders

This not only includes those who have a financial stake in the decision but also those who will be involved in the implementation of the decision. Remember, without the support of those who will implement the decision, it is doomed for failure.

So remember when you are making your next decision; take no shortcuts, increase your options, check you motives and listen to the stakeholders.

Passive, Aggressive, Assertive

Last night in my Organizational Behavior class, we had an excersize and discussion on the importance of understanding what type of behavioral category you fall under, passive, aggressive or assertiveness. In all cases, everyone has characteristics of all three types of responses, however, the most effective response would be assertive.

After class I had a good conversation with my daughter because she asked me what we talked about in class. At this point I realized how important it is for parents to train their children in yet another area of socialization. Since my daughter is only 10, these concepts were a little difficult to relay to her so these were the definitions I used:

Passive - You let people walk all over you, you hardly ever stand up for yourself.

Aggressive - You are too confrontational with people, this ussually makes people think you are rude.

Assertive - You are able to stand up for your rights while not taking away someone else's rights. Being able to stand up for yourself tactfully while still remaining respectful of others.

Of course most of us know this, so this message serves as a reminder for you to spend some time in reflection of what actions do you exhibit most and how can you change them to better achieve your goals.