Critical Decision Making

Every day, you are called upon to make important decisions. Poor choices can lead to death or serious bodily harm. Bad decisions can have major service impacts, interfere with your effectiveness and influence customer support for your business. These decisions are frequently made under conditions of stress, hazard or fatigue. Many times, these decisions must be made in uncertain, fast moving or ill-defined circumstances. We call a decision that potentially affects our well-being or that of others and made under intense pressure a critical decision. The National Safety Council (NSC) reports that 44 linemen died in work- related incidents in 2013. Compare this with the FBI’s report that 49 police officers died due to noncriminal causes in the same period. The similarities are interesting. The NSC reports that many incidents occur during routine tasks because workers become too comfortable and complacent. Recognizing the importance of proper mindset, more utility companies are interviewing candidates based on attitude and mental aptitude, not necessarily on specified skill sets that can be developed later through training. This bears a striking similarity to recent trends in law enforcement hiring practices. Understanding the above, we must ask ourselves: is there a way to improve our ability to make critical decisions? In this program, you will be provided with some useful tools to improve your ability to make the sort of critical decisions you`re faced with every day of your career working in the public utility industry.