What steps do you take when you have to make an immediate decision and you don't have all the relevant or necessary information?
They're interested in how you logically assess and approach a situation when there is an element of risk involved. This requires an immediate approach to damage control and a broad view of the big picture. In any high pressured situation that requires immediate decision making, taking a calculated risk is often necessary, especially where hesitating is more costly. Therefore, the interviewer wants to know if you are a risk taker or someone who is risk averse.
If you are a risk-taker, they want to know how you approach evaluating risk. On the other hand, if you are risk averse, you can't grow if you're not willing to risk stepping outside of your comfort zone. So share with your interviewer your approach when it comes to being resourceful, exhibiting outside-of-the-box thinking, and how you approach taking an educated, calculated risk while thinking fast on your feet. Provide an example that exhibits sound judgment. Discuss the results of your course of action, what you learned, and how you've grown from your experience.
"I have a pretty routine process I follow to make quick decisions. I weigh the pros and cons and come up with a solution that makes the most sense. Next, I ask the opinion of someone I trust to see what they think. Even though I trust my decision-making ability, I still think it's important to get a second opinion when it comes to situations involving money or if it could make a significant impact on others."
"I am an organized individual, so I do have a checklist that I follow for all policy-related decisions and changes. If I do not have all the necessary information, I can usually find it in our company resource database."
Community answers are written by other candidates practicing this set. Reading how others frame the same question is one of the fastest ways to sharpen your own.
Anonymous Answer
I like to apply structured analyses like a SWOT or a what-if analysis to help me establish the facts, what I know with certainty, and how it affects long-term vs short-term goals. If I can come to a conclusion that would be reasonable to pursue I'm not averse to making a decision that I think makes logical sense based on my analysis.
I think a good example of this that happened to me is in recent contract negotiations we were setting terms to have a contract novated and there was a risk of losing the project if we weren't willing to give up terms and responses were needed very quickly. I listened to our legal teams' concerns with accepting the terms but we were also on the cusp of winning a large project and we could have forced the issue as legal's concerns were somewhat abstract and our team mentioned it would be an uncommon occurrence but prudent to consider. After weighing the risk of keeping clauses we decided not to accept and to stand our ground and at the last minute the customer accepted our terms. It turned out to be a good move as we did end up in a situation that required those terms which would have been a costly error.
Marcie's Feedback
Wow! This is a great example. Any interviewer will be impressed by how decisive you appear - definitely a leadership skill too! Nice job.
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