The Acumen to Quickly 'See' Problems and Respond Promptly
It's not as common an expertise as is needed. How we can stand out with it.
As leaders of our own lives or other people in a professional setting, it’s highly beneficial to develop the finely tuned skills of noticing — and acting on time.
“I should have recognized the deficiencies sooner and intervened faster,” former U.S. President George W. Bush wrote in his 2010 memoir, Decision Points. “The problem was not that I made the wrong decisions; it was that I took too long to decide.”
Yes, patience in decision analysis can result in more thoughtful conclusions and higher decision quality yet circumstances don’t always allow for that more methodical approach. There are times when, as Bush pointed out, we have to see things quicker and respond intelligently and wisely now or soon after “now.”
Bush came to realize his error. We can too.
Learn from those experiences or failures and remember them so we don’t repeat them again. Hopefully we can prevent egregious or critical errors in future dangerous situations (which will eventually present themselves) in our professional and personal lives.
It’s highly-valued practices of recognition, critical thinking, clarity, decisiveness and risk mitigation and risk management. It’s a unique expertise. It serves us and others well and it stands out because not everyone can do it or does do it expertly.
It becomes an admired reputation.
This doesn’t mean overreacting. It does mean you’ve developed the power to see what is expected of you, what everyone else may or may not see (use other people’s trusted sense of noticing and critical thinking to help you) and know what to ethically and skillfully do, on time.
It will keep the mission, whatever it is, on the right path and prevent it, you and others from being derailed, sometimes terribly.
This newsletter — Reputation Intelligence — is written by Michael Toebe, and is a product of Reputation Intelligence - Reputation Quality, a firm which helps individuals and organizations assure a greater peace of mind, provide stress relief through reliable decision analysis, consulting, advisory and communications.
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