Get Smart: Making effective decisions

People have enormous mental capability that they habitually fail to use.

Life is like a combination lock. If you have the right numbers the lock opens.

You become what you think about most of the time.

The best measure of quality thinking is your ability to accurately predict the consequences of your ideas and subsequent actions.

Winston Churchill said: “I've stopped listening to what people say. I look at what they do. Behaviour is the only truth.”

The act of thinking long term sharpens your perspective and dramatically improves the quality of your short-term decision making.

Successful people are willing to sacrifice, to delay immediate gratification, to enjoy the greater rewards of the long term.

The difference between success and failure is not good intentions, but to see if you have taken the first step.

Think on paper. One of the most powerful thinking tools is to put things down on paper, write a note.

Success is not a matter of luck, it is a matter of probabilities.

Success is not an accident, and neither is failure. You need to think carefully and plan to get success.

Harold Geneen, who headed the International Telephone and Telegraph Corp. in the 1960s and ’70s, said: “The most important things in business are facts. Get the real facts, not the obvious facts or the assumed facts. Facts don’t lie.”

Solicit opinions. Everyone has a view. Get the view from people around you and in a meeting. You will be better off with feedback.

Experienced people develop pattern recognition and this helps them spot issues before they actually happen.

The more information you gather, the more experience you accumulate.

A person without goals makes no progress even on a clear road; a person with clear goals makes progress even on the roughest road.

Change is coming fast at us with information explosion, expansion of technology and aggressive competition.

Your earning ability is your ability to produce results that people will pay you for.

All success in life boils down to one thing: TASK COMPLETION.

HR consulting firm Robert Half International did a survey and found that fully 50% of time is wasted.

It is wasted in tea/coffee sessions, gossip sessions, by coming in late to work, by leaving early and generally doing everything but work.

Work all the time you work. When you go to work, work.

Because you are at work doesn’t mean you are working. You are only working if you are completing tasks.

Keep asking yourself: What results are expected of me?

Successful people practice positive thinking most of the time. They don’t look back.

Thinking positive requires effort and determination.

The roots of negative emotions are: Rationalisation, justification, judgementalism, hypersensitivity.

Accept 100% responsibility for things that go wrong.

In 1995, the Menninger institute studied the qualities needed to succeed. The most important quality for the future was FLEXIBILITY.

To succeed, individuals and organisations need to be at the cutting edge of learning.

People in the top 20% of achievement learn a lot, read a lot, surround themselves with learning and knowledge.

The three enemies of change and flexibility are:

1. Comfort zone
2. Fear
3. Inability to change

Learned helplessness is a classic “I can’t and we can’t” syndrome.

Geniuses develop three qualities:

1. Keep an open mind
2. Find the best solution
3. A systematic approach

Success comes in CANS, not in CANNOTS.