By: Faizan Haq, Editor-in-Chief & Publisher, Your Bliss Magazine

Every day in business, one makes many decisions and each decision may cause many unwanted consequences. The most difficult decisions are those where one must change or redirect team members for the betterment of the business. The anxiety hits you when you have to balance the long-term with the short-term effects and goals. Anxiety gets even more severe when there is an increased possibility of unwarranted reactions by individuals with unstable personalities and fragile egos. Difficult conversations become even harder when there are not many links of common grounds of communication available. It often takes place when organizations are either expanding or diversifying their business models.

At such a time, one must prioritize business objectives and organizational goals. Long-term consequences must prevail however indecisiveness will add to the state of anxiety and will cost organizations dearly. The state of not making a decision for a longer period of time, can be more destructive than making an immediate decision of poor quality. Once a decision is made and communicated, regardless of the quality of the decision, it provides a pivoting reference for thecourse of business. From that point on, the direction is set and the path to success becomes clearer. At times, clarity comes by making a bad decision.

At the end of the day, anxiety is an emotion that is embedded in the fear of the unknown. The only way to deliberately tackle the unknown is, to know what is needed to make an informed decision. The responsibility of acquiring the information to decide competently is one of the main functions of management and leadership. There should be a system of collecting, testing and compiling organizational data so that the quality of decisions can be consistently maintained.

After doing all of this homework, the level of anxiety may reduce, but it may never go away. The last and ultimate step to challenge the anxiety is to move forward with A Decision. Then get ready to contain the outflow of the reaction. Prepare all stakeholders in your organization proactively and explain the context so that they understand the reasoning behind your decision. Consulting major stakeholders in this process will help lower the anxiety not only for yourself but for the whole organization.