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The Importance of Analysing Information in Making Critical Personal and Corporate Decisions

Brian Kazungu

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Brian Kazungu, 20/05/2023

Have you ever wondered why people do what they do? Have you ever asked yourself why some people do good things while others continue to do even the most despicable things on earth?

The secret to all this mystery is INFORMATION.

People don’t just do what they do, they follow a process. Whether it takes a few seconds, hours or days to do something, the action process remains the same.

The Action Process is made up of the following stages: Imagination, Thinking, Decision, and Action.

When you imagine something and then quickly decide and take action without critically analyzing the information you have, you are likely to contribute towards most of life’s tragedies, blunders and regrets that torment humanity from to time.

Most of the problems that are faced by people from all over the world, be it at work or at home are a result of the failure to objectively and open-mindedly process information before you commit to do something.

I can generally describe THINKING as the open-minded and objective processing of information towards decision making.

As such, when you want to do anything in life, you must think or process the information you have about what you are dealing with so you can make the right decision and take the right action.

Regardless of circumstances, you must be able to master the art of open-minded and objective processing of information since whatever you do, whether it’s a crime or a good deed, it is determined by access to information and the interpretation of that information.

I refer to information as merely a collection of signs and symbols that you use for decision making in the execution of your duties and responsibilities be it at home, at school, at work or anywhere else.

The way how information is arranged, packaged and transmitted determines how you interpret it, and the way how you interpret it determines the quality of decisions that you make and the action that you take.

Education, Religion, Parenting, Past Experiences, and Dreams as well as Gossip (Grapevine), Intelligence Service, Propaganda, Culture and Tradition etc. are some of the predominant sources of information that we have about ourselves and the world around us.

These sources of information determine what you consider to be good or bad or what you consider to be right or wrong. They determine what you choose to do and what you choose to ignore.

As such, the main difference between those who make smart (wise) decisions and those make foolish decisions is Information Processing or Thinking.

Without processing the information, you have through the act of thinking, you are bound to make abrupt and regrettable decisions out of excitement and ignorance, but if you think through a certain matter, you are bound to make an informed decision with lasting benefits.

When it comes to making wise decisions, knowledge on its own is not enough. It must be coupled with understanding in order for you to make informed decisions and act wisely.

N.B: Wisdom, Knowledge and Understanding – Knowledge simply means the possession of information, but wisdom refers to the understanding and correct application of knowledge.

It doesn’t matter whether you are a president, or you consider yourself to be a commoner, your actions are always based on information.

Whether you were forced or manipulated to do something or not – the answer remains the same – you used information to make a decision and that decision resulted in a certain act.

The thoughts and imagination you have are subject to your exposure to some information (knowledge) that you have about the world around you. This information is then used in the response to opportunities and threats as they unfold from time to time.

Please note that your actions are immediately influenced by two things: 1) Opportunities 2) Threats. Whatever you are doing in this life, whether good or bad, is based on whether you saw an opportunity or you felt threatened and thus your action was the response.

It is thus important to understand that it’s the information you have about yourself and the world around you which makes you to perceive something as either an opportunity or a threat.

In this regard, anything that disturbs your peace, joy and development is a threat and anything that promotes your peace, joy and development is an opportunity.

Threats can also be anything which harms you or takes away your life and in response, you can choose to fight or surrender. On the other hand, opportunities also refers to that which gives you a lease of life or which makes your life easy, and is thus worthy pursuit.

When you look at everything that has been said here so far, you can see that it is important for you to carefully think about something before you make a serious decision.

As such, you must understand that your choices, wishes, dreams, aspirations, fears and concerns are determined by the information you have or what you know about:

a) Yourself (your identity, ability, strengths and weaknesses),

b) Fellow human beings (their identities, abilities, strengths and weaknesses)

c) Nature (the benefits and dangers of water, land and air and the contents thereof).

It is this knowledge about yourself and the world around you which then determines your decisions, and these decisions are the ones which determine your actions.

If you have wrong information about yourself as well as about other people and nature, you will develop wrong imaginations which will unfortunately cause you to make wrong decisions and subsequently you will take the wrong actions.

This is why there is a battle for the control and interpretation of information on Earth either by governments, businesses, religions or even families.

Those that are in charge of information in any society do determine the reality of mankind.

You may not have the power to control the flow of information, but you must strive to learn the art of processing any piece of information that you come across before you make a decision.

The Smart Decision Handbook which I wrote is one good resource that can help you to master the art of thinking which I also loosely defined as the open minded and objective processing of information.

It is therefore important to identify mechanisms that help to define and determine the type, quality and quantity of information that is exchanged for decision making since people and their natural environment are always transmitting information.

This information must be correctly interpreted in order for you to take advantage of opportunities and to guard against threats as they unfold.

The sending, receiving and interpretation of information which takes place in any community determines the interaction between:

1) Men and Women 2) Children and Elders 3) Leaders and Followers 4) Natives and Foreigners 5) People and Nature etc.

As such, if you wrongly interpret the signs and symbols transmitted by people and nature, you will unfortunately make wrong assumptions and decisions and subsequently take wrong actions which then results in negative consequences.

Since we use information for decision making, it means that the same information must be scanned for impurities before being used to determine the next move. This therefore brings us to Data Integrity Analysis (DIA).

I describe Data Integrity Analysis as the systemic and systematic analysis of the intention and authenticity of the source, the path taken and the changes in the quality and package of information along the path from the sender to the receiver.

A Data Integrity Analysis is done in order to make sure that the correct information is used for the correct purpose using the correct channel.

Adapted from THE SMART DECISION HANDBOOK written by Brian Kazungu

Author Profile: https://www.amazon.com/author/briankazungu

Twitter – @BKazungu

Twitter – @BKazungu

Brian Kazungu is an Author, Poet, Journalist, and Technology Enthusiast whose writing covers issues to do with Business, Travelling, Motivation and Inspiration, Religion, Politics, and Communication among others. https://www.amazon.com/author/briankazungu https://muckrack.com/brian-kazungu http://www.modernghana.com/author/BrianKazungu [email protected] @BKazungu-Twitter He has written and published several books covering various aspects of human life including leadership, entrepreneurship, politics, personal development as well as poetry and travel. These books are found on Amazon https://www.amazon.com/author/briankazungu

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