Business owners and leadership teams are generally tasked with the responsibility of making the business decisions of the day and to make difficult strategic decisions that may have a significant impact on the business and its employees.

The challenge of making the right decisions starts with gaining the all of information related to the decision at hand and having those with the right knowledge and tools involved unbundling all of the information into a package that is relevant to the business.

The gathering and deciphering of information is followed by applying the information package to the needs of the business, equally requiring the decision makers to have the right knowledge of the business elements and the strategic direction the business is to take.

The decision making process may also be influenced by the 'state of mind' of the decision makers themselves. Business owners may be driven by wanting to expand the business quickly, possibly to gain a quick surge of income to repay debt, or may be working too much and want to down size or retire, possibly wanting to sell and needing the accounts to exhibit better earnings, or have a passion for a product or service to be acquired or retained, or a multitude of other mental pressures that may affect the decision at hand.

Senior managers tasked with making business decisions may be swayed by wanting to provide higher short-term profitability to possibly gain promotion, maybe to increase staff through expansion, or reduce the business due to personal stress and overwork, or make inadequate decisions whilst distracted by personal health or other personal adverse conditions.

Making the right decisions, with all of the relevant information being aligned with the business strategy, for the best interests of the business is not always made with logical mind, as there are other influences that slip into the analysis equation, sometimes subconsciously, that lead to making decisions that are not necessarily in the best interests of the business.

There are a few simply processes that may help decision makers stay focused on the best interest of the business rather then being swayed by other distractions.

1. Mindfulness is a very easy mindset tool to use, keeping the mind focused on the task at hand, whilst filtering the unhelpful distractions.

2. Moderate your decision making with a mentor or qualified colleague to check your analysis.

3. Connect with a neutral third party adviser to work through the information and analysis.

Using a third party adviser doesn't question your knowledge or business skillset, it simply checks that your analysis hasn't been tainted with unhelpful distractions.