By the time you read this we will have a new political landscape in this country.

I'm writing without the benefit of knowing what path the electorate has set us on for the next five years but what I do know is that the conflicting messages being communicated prior to polling day were mindboggling in their complexity, at times verging on Machiavellian.

Some commentators painted an almost apocalyptic scenario under a hung parliament and urgently extolled the need for one party to carry a clear majority, while others trumpeted the success of coalition governments in Germany and other European countries.

At one stage certain government ministers asked potential Labour voters to vote "intelligently" (or, reading between the lines, Lib Dem) in certain seats just to keep the Tories out. How could I, a mere mortal with limited macro-economic understanding, navigate this political jungle and decide which really was the best way to cast my vote?

This enigma leads me nicely on to the main topic of my thought for the month, which was prompted by some advisory work that I was carrying out last month. I was asked to help the leadership team put together a people strategy for the next year, three years and five years, based on their short-term, medium-term and long-(ish)-term business plan and goal/vision for the company.

During the discussions, the subject of "decision-making" came up and how difficult it was for the leadership team, on occasion, to know what is right and make the correct decision, but also the concerns that they all shared about the decision-making ability of their respective teams.

A friend of mine came up with a brilliant statement a few years ago, which neatly summarises my thoughts on this. He said "there are no rights and wrongs in business, only different degrees of right, which change every day".

I really like this. Obviously there are some absolute wrongs in business as in life, but as a general rule in business it is extremely common to find yourself faced with circumstances that are not black and white but grey and often lots of different shades of grey, thus making it very difficult to make the right decision all the time.

I have always believed it is best to listen to all the arguments, take stock of the available facts, weigh up each side accordingly (and there could be many more than two or three) and then just get on and do it. Procrastination is the worse thing that anyone can do.

It is counter-productive, needless and delaying, and inevitably the situation generally gets worse and the people around the procrastinator get confused, disorganised and panicky. God help us if the new government turns out like that!

Guy Moreton is director of recruitment practitioner MorePeople.

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