Your life will be judged by the thousands of decisions you have made. Some decisions will be as easy. Some will be hard. Others live in what is called GREY SPACE. Come back in five seconds and I’ll explain how to manage the GREY SPACE. RLC . Ross Shafer here and I want to talk to you about GREY SPACE…those times when ambiguity causes your decision making to freeze up. Grey Space can make you see a problem both ways; which makes you pause. You stall. You postpone because you think you need more evidence. And if your company and coworkers are depending upon YOU to make a choice, WAITING is a bad option. And, compiling more and more data isn’t always helpful either.

It merely makes the Indecision of Grey Space last longer. So how can you unblock yourself? First you have to be realistic about WHO YOU ARE. If you are new at this particular kind of decision and don’t have a lot of experience, relying on data is safe. You’re like an airline pilot who trusts the instruments in bad weather. However, if you have a lot of experience and you’re still frozen to decide, you are probably trying to reconcile the data – with your instincts. Consider this: Author Malcolm Gladwell, in his book BLINK, describes how data can’t tell the whole story. Gladwell says, according to a lot of Big Data, Millennials are highly mistrustful. They don’t trust companies or politicians or food labels – yet that data doesn’t explain why they will happily get into an UBER vehicle with a total stranger…or rent their home through AirBNB to someone who could be a serial killer.

The data and the behaviors don’t match but that gives you a lcear decision path. The fact that UBER and AIRBNB are successful is the answer. If you can’t decide, look at what is selling. What sells – and what doesn’t sell is always the best indicator. Watch Shark Tank. Inventors come to the Sharks with Data like, “Wooden Bowls are a $200 million dollar industry and I have the finest bowls; hand-carved from Peruvian Ironwood. “It’s $1,000.” A shark says, “How many have you sold?” “Four” “I don’t care how big the industry is, I can’t invest $200,000 in making Thousand-dollar bowls that don’t sell.

People want a $12-dollar bowl from Wal-mart.” Don’t get me wrong. I love data. But when you are trapped in the Grey Space because you’re still trying to convince yourself you need more evidence, STOP! More data isn’t the answer. The best decisions are made from a recipe that contains data, instinct, and most importantly…results. If you want to eliminate the Grey Space in your brain, the best decisions will be based upon actual behavior and actual sales.

Ross Shafer is an Emmy award winning network talk show host and comedy writer who has turned that same talent toward the corporate marketplace. He has written and produced 14 Human Resource training films on Customer Service, Leadership, and Sales. Ross has also authored several business books, which include Nobody Moved Your Cheese, Customer Empathy, The Customer Shouts Back, and Are You Relevant?. His most recent book is Grab More Market Share: How to Wrangle Business Away from Lazy Competitors.

To Learn more about Ross contact [email protected]

Derek Sweeney is the Director of Speaker Ideas at The Sweeney Agency. www.thesweeneyagency.com. For 15 years Derek has been helping clients find the right Speakers for their events. Derek can be reached at 1-866 727-7555 or [email protected]