Making Difficult Decisions: How to be decisive and get the business done

Chapter 15. Next steps

A former junior fire officer tells the story of going into a building to try and find two children. He was told he had 90 seconds before the building was likely to collapse. He rushed up the stairs and had to make the decision whether to go into the room on the right or the left, as there was only time to investigate one room. He had to make an instant decision. It happened to be the wrong one: the children must have been in the other room. He now had to exit the building in the time allowed or he would have lost his own life.

This experience has lived with this former junior fire officer for a long time. His only choice was an instant decision: he assumed the children were in the bedroom, when they must have moved into the ...