Making mistakes of the mental kind is always embarrassing. We all do it at one time or another in our human life spans, and we all want to avoid it.

    For some of us though, avoiding mental mistakes is our job. Our subordinates and entourage look to us for not only superior knowledge and guidance, but for superior preparation as well. We know where matters are headed, because we have taken the time and exerted the mental effort required to recognize those imaginary possibilities before they become actual occurrences. We imagine them, and we prepare for them, because no one wants an unwanted accident from keeping us from progressing toward our goal(s). Know-how is nothing if we aren't prepared for ALL possibilities ... well in advance. Leading is preparation, above all other characteristics.

    When leading becomes your job, we call it professionalism. But professionalism entails much more than merely leading. If the nature of your job requires you to consider, plan for and safeguard the well-being of others — to prepare against and prevent unnecessary suffering — you are a professional, whether you want to be one or not. Business owners, legislators, judges, police officers, firefighters, medical doctors and nurses, construction foremen, teachers, principals, religious leaders and so on all fit in this category. What they say or what they do can have substantial impact on the lives of all those relying and depending upon them for specialized guidance and/or supervision.

    In the workplace, professionalism embodies three crucial characteristics:

• Competence: to know everything about what you are doing.
• Compassion: to care about those all around you who are doing.
• Concern: to check to make sure that they are doing it Right.

Bottom line: If you haven't these qualities, you're just a "fluff figure," sitting idly by, looking pretty and occupying a position which ought to be filled by some other, more qualified individual. There is just no workable way around these three simple requisites for your job. Solid fact. Face it squarely. Adapt, move on ... or squander at the hands of potential embarrassment.

    Having noticed a void in our worldwide information exchange in regard to supplying managers, administrators, CEOs, lawyers, small business owners and other decision makers with reference tools that may be reviewed when making important decisions, this site was created to fit that niche. Our internet conveniently allows those such as ourselves to quickly and effortlessly communicate with millions of interested information seekers. We offer these articles, collectively, on a free web site in an effort to assist all the professional decision makers who are out there and who bear responsibility for the well-being of other individuals (in some cases, large populations of people) who depend upon them and rely on their superior supervision. Our aim is to help decision makers EVERYWHERE by providing them with something that they can review from time to time as a self-check system.

    Even the most seemingly simple decisions may conceal tragically dangerous mental snares in a deceptive decision selection terrain. The human mind is not perfect, and decision makers must acknowledge that fact and seek appropriate training if they wish to avoid common mental defaults that at times guile even the most seasoned decision makers among us.

    Humans, no matter how well educated, do err! The task of avoiding all potential for mental error is not simple! Because we don't have mechanical minds, we tire and overlook, forget and even ignore, trivialize and oversimplify. In the words of professors Keith E Stanovich and Richard F West (Individual Differences in Reasoning: Implications for the Rationality Debate? at ftp://ftp.princeton.edu/pub/harnad/BBS/.WWW/bbs.stanovich.html),

people assess probabilities incorrectly, they display confirmation bias, they test hypotheses inefficiently, ... they do not properly calibrate degrees of belief, they over-project their own opinions onto others, they allow prior knowledge to become implicated in deductive reasoning, and they display numerous other information processing biases.

Never assume that you know everything you need, that your education and/or past experiences have flawlessly prepared you for every possibility. Keep searching for information; continue to educate yourself; make an attempt to know more; keep growing mentally. Do your best to prepare yourself for the unexpected, because it just may knock on your door and greet you one day.

    None of us is born knowing what to do in each and every situation that may be encountered in the course of a lifetime. Neither are we born knowing how to approach any given situation so that our own innate emotions and cognitive shortcomings cannot interfere with or in some way impede our decision-making and guide us down a wrong mental road. Furthermore, "confidently" believing that we may consistently imagine our way around all those predicaments we may know nearly nothing about is, of course, foolhardy. Nuances are typically overlooked when a decision-maker is attempting to manage a scenario that he or she knows little or absolutely nothing about.

    Cautious and wise decisions are not an outgrowth of experience or formal education alone. Our human minds are powerful and clever enough to introspect, discuss, hypothesize, test and subsequently discover certain truths, rules or mental algorithms that we can use as tools or guides through unfamiliar mental terrain, but relying too confidently on self-discovery alone without seeking any broader scientific validity could lead us to fanatical beliefs which might prompt devastating consequences to poorly judged or misguided decisions. Experience does help, but experience lies far away from being a persistent provider of infallible direction. Formal education helps as well, unless it falls short of providing pertinent specialized training or knowledge that's needed to effectively navigate through some particular situation.

    Always must we remember that how accurately we may perceive a situation subsequently determines how effectively we may think about it — imagine and prepare for it. If we overlook any tiny subtlety in our initial perception(s), all our subsequent planning will likely prove erroneous, and we may just have to start all over again.

    In a nutshell, effective decision-making entails these five essential steps (D-I-A-P-S):

1. Collect All Relevant Data.
2. Imagine All Possibilities.
3. Analyze All Alternatives.
4. Recognize Your Priorities.
5. Safely Engage The Final Decision.

Any weakness at any of these five steps is a setup for potential error. Realize that professional decision-making is NOT a game: Lives are linked to your decisions! Relying solely on your memories, assumptions, perceptions and beliefs to guide your decision-making style inevitably leads to oversight and trial-and-error learning. To avoid any potential for error, you must seek the advice of highly competent (informed, trained, experienced) individuals who have achieved a certain overview over the particular situation in question. You must also exert your mental creativity and analytical prowess to the utmost, rather than idly assuming that tragedy "just won’t happen to me.” Accidents are never foreseen, but with ample planning in advance are always avoidable.

REMEMBER:
    Your care, caution and compassion will keep your business safe ... for your employees, customers and whomever else may happen to traverse your way. Always plan ahead and imagine possible accidents before one actually surprises you one day. The key is to make sure that you won't be surprised, but prepared, working perpetually to prevent such a surprise from ever occurring in the first place. "Super busy and 100% accident-free" is the type of establishment you should pray and plan for. That may be a heavenly dream, but it's certainly an aspiring goal worth striving toward.

    Just remember ... one blunder ... one oversight ... one small error on your part that leads to some accidental injury ... and poof! your job or your entire business suddenly becomes the legal acquisition of somebody else. If that doesn't motivate you to start planning for accidents in the workplace, I don't know what will.

Member World Wide Web Chamber of Commerce
Promoting "Responsible and Ethical Internet Business”

All opinions expressed in this web site, unless otherwise noted, are my own, Michael Gaspard. If you notice any errors or have any suggestions for improvement, please let me know by e-mailing webmaster@mdpme.com. Thank you!

This web page was last updated on Monday, November 1, 2004.
http://www.mdpme.com/about.htm

Terms of use &
Disclaimer/Privacy.