Positive Indicators
- Identifies the key issues in a complex situation, and comes to the heart of the problem quickly.
- Gathers relevant information before making a decision.
- Considers positive and negative impact on others and on the Organization.
- Proposes a course of action or makes a recommendation based on all available information.
- Checks assumptions against facts.
- Determines that the actions proposed will satisfy the expressed and underlying needs for the decision.
- Makes tough decisions when necessary.
Negative Indicators
- Sees problem only as a whole.
- Makes illogical decisions.
- Uses intuition in decision-making.
- Takes a subjective approach.
- Solves problems slowly.
- Takes unnecessary risks.
- Draws inappropriate conclusions.
- Does not seek out additional information.
- Looks at data in isolation.
- Misses the core of a problem.
- Finds it difficult to make tough decisions.
Sample Questions
Describe to me a complex problem which you recently solved.
- What made it so challenging?
- How did you handle it?
- What implications did you consider?
- What was the outcome?
Tell me about when you have had to identify the key cause of a problem.
- How did you work out the cause?
- How did you solve the problem?
- What lessons did you learn?
- What sort of information did this involve?
- How did you analyse it?
- What did you learn from the analysis?
Give me a recent example of when you came up with different solutions to a problem.
- What suggestions did you come up with?
- What did others think of your ideas?
- How well did they work in practice?
Tell me about a time when you made the wrong decision when solving a major problem.
- How did you go about it?
- Why did you make the wrong decision?
- What will you do differently next time?
Give me an example of the type of information sources you typically use in an attempt to get to the bottom of issues.
- How did you know when you had enough information?
- What feedback have you had on your use of available information sources?
- How does your use of available information sources compare to the approaches used by your colleagues?
- What do you see as being the most important thing to remember when gathering information to solve problems?
Give me an example of the type of questions you have asked in order to establish the facts about a past situation or problem.
- How effective was your fact-finding?
- What do you see as being the area you need to develop in terms of your fact-finding skills?
Describe the last time that you had to analyse a large amount of information to solve a problem.
- What feedback did you get on the accuracy
of your analysis? - How did you incorporate data in your decision?
- In what type of situations are you likely to make decisions on the basis of intuition or gut feeling?
- What type of information do you have most difficulty analysing?
Describe a situation where you have had to consider a variety of alternatives in your decision-making.
- What factors did you take into account?
- What feedback did you receive on the success of your decision?
- What would you have done differently in hindsight?
- How do you think you could improve your decision-making approach?
Describe the process that you typically use to make a final decision.
- Tell me about an example of how you have applied this process in the past.
- How successful was your decision?
- In what situations are you unlikely to take a structured approach to your decision-making?
- How would you describe your decision-making approach in relation to your peers?
- What do you see as being the key to effective decision-making?
Tell me about a time when you found it parti… tough to make a decision?
- What were the circumstances?
- How did you handle the decision?
- In what sort of situations do you find it harder to make decisions?
- How have you coped with these in the past?