Whether you should take up the new job offer or stick to the present organisation? Whether you should take up a course to learn the new skill or focus on the present work project to sway the boss in your favour? We face many choices at work every day, and many of them leave us baffled.
Jeff Bezos has a simple rule to ensure that you make the right decision. While taking decision, focus on those factors that will not change.
Situations change daily. We, as individuals, grow and evolve with the passage of time. Who is to say whether you will continue working with the present team or even the same organisation or in the same city? What will ensure your success and happiness in ten years? The future is highly unpredictable. And it is better to focus on things that will not change.
We live in a complex world where variable factors compound any situation, creating many probable outcomes. When the world was disparaging the decisions of Jeff Bezos and how Amazon was going down the wrong path, he did not heed to the naysayers. And now he is one of the richest man on earth, and Amazon is a giant in the market. The sceptics have been shut up.
Jeff Bezos realised that the decisions you take now cannot be situational because they create consequences that last for decades. So, taking short term decision is parochial and short-sighted. The secret is to focus on more permanent factors, and account for these in decision making.
Image Credit: medium
For instance, if you are sure that innovation makes you happy, then you can take a directional orientation that innovation will make you happy even after thirty years. And then you can slowly build towards that, with tinkering, trial and error. If you think that taking one critical decision and following one path will lead to success, it may not work as things change with time.
The world is becoming increasingly dynamic, and to adhere to fixed frameworks may not be helpful. Focusing on the future in a changing present may be the right way to take decisions.
