How do we go about making decisions? The answer partly depends on the situations or circumstances we are in... situational decision-making is an assessment of the situation followed by a quick mental simulation of the likely outcome of our chosen course of action. It is based in experience, responds to pressures on available time, and helps us manage ambiguous detail. It is a partly intuitively based approach to decision-making. Alternatively, analytical decision-making is a more structured approach applied to research, clinical and other work situations where masses of abstract data need processing, or a range of different people come together to make a decision, and there is a greater requirement to objectively justify the decision. Ultimately it is not so much about finding the right or wrong decision, but more about our 'confidence' in the decisions we have made. Confidence will be underpinned by a focus on the strengths that can be identified and productively applied as a crucial component in our decision-making approach. An absence of identified strengths can still offer confidence, but in these circumstances it will be confidence in making the more risk averse decisions.
