5 Questions to Answer Before Making a Big Decision

CEOs and other execs earn their keep through strong decision making. Here's a process for doing it reliably.

In Ancient Greece, when an important person had a heavy decision to make, they would head over to the Temple of Apollo at Delphi.

There, they could consult the famous Oracle of Delphi. She would listen to her petitioner’s dilemma and, by some reports, enter a frenzied state after inhaling vapors emanating from a rift in the temple’s floor.

(The whole thing about the vapors was long thought to be mythical, until geologists and archaeologists found actual fissures in the “oily limestone” beneath the temple.)

Deep in her trance, the Oracle would give you what you wanted: an answer straight from the gods.

“The Oracle of Delphi Entranced” by Heinrich Leutemann

To which many a CEO would say: Must be nice!

For better or worse, the CEO is the ultimate decision maker for the organization. It’s a burden that sometimes feels as heavy as Atlas’s, and we have no vapor-drunk oracle from whom to get divinely sanctioned guidance.

When the organization faces its biggest tests, it’s up to us to make the call…