Yesterday, our working group got bogged down in coming to terms with making a decision about the work scope of one of our subcontractors. The discussion turned into a shouting match where two parties felt their idea was best. The discussion was ineffective. We tabled the discussion without making a decision.

Our inability to quickly come to a decision means another meeting, more discussion and more time.

Wow! I call these sessions group gropes. We hold a meeting, discuss, argue, and the leader fails to make a call, so we table, only to come back and do it again.

After the meeting I thought, "There must be a better way." So, I did a quick search and found a great website on leadership decision making. The website offers practical advice and tools on making decisions and is worth looking into. For example, in the section on "How To Make Good Decisions":

Decisions are an inevitable part of human activities. It requires the right attitude. Every problem, properly perceived, becomes an opportunity. In most situations the decision-maker must view the problems as opportunities rather than solving problems. For example, suppose you receive a serious complaint letter from a dissatisfied customer. You may turn this problem into an opportunity by finding out more about what is wrong with the product/service, learning from the customer's experience in order to improve the quality of your product/service. It all depends on the decision-maker's attitude. A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.

Each problem has hidden in it an opportunity so powerful that it literally dwarfs the problem. The greatest success stories were created by people who recognized a problem and turned it into an opportunity.