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March 2004
Decisions, Decisions...
By Jan Richards, J. G. Richards Consulting
Decisions. They're no big deal. Right? Wrong! Decision making is where the strengths and weaknesses of a team — or a company — rapidly become apparent. Ask a senior manager or any employee at your company how well the decision making works. You're likely to hear frustration and at least a few ideas about how to make better decisions, such as:
- Decisions never really happen around here; or if they do, they take forever. Everyone has an opinion on everything. Nobody has any real facts.
- We spend a lot of time gathering loads of information, and then our manager does what he wants, even if the data we gather points to a different direction than the one he takes.
- The team makes a decision, but as soon as the meeting is over and the members go their separate ways, many of them undercut the decisions. There's no real teamwork in our group, just the appearance of it in the boardroom.
Do any of these comments sound familiar? If so, there are ways you can improve the decision-making process, enabling you to save time and money and improve the goodwill of your employees.
Decide How to Decide
Before your group meets to discuss a new project or issue, choose the people who will contribute to the decision and what role each person will play. Communicate the process and roles to everyone involved, so you eliminate the potential for misunderstanding. Additional questions to consider include:
- Who usually makes this type of decision and how? What's the best way to make this decision — independently, in a group, by consensus, majority vote, or some other way?
- Whom does this decision affect? What impact does this decision have?
- How will you best spend your time during the process? Determine what you can delegate and what you must do yourself.
- What are the largest risks involved in making this decision, and how can you reduce those risks?
- Will you use a linear process? It may be better to "chunk" this decision into smaller ones that can be made concurrently or sequentially.
- Do you have prior experience you can draw on to make this decision? Are there others from whom you could learn in order to improve the process before proceeding?
- Are the deadlines real? Does your team really need to make a decision now?
- What natural biases do you have that could influence the way you seek or evaluate the information necessary to make a decision?
Frame the Decision
Be clear about the problem you're addressing. Create a clear, common vision of a good decision and its outcome. This can take some time, but it's time well spent, as it focuses the rest of the decision-making process. Define the specific criteria you'll use to make the decision, based on stakeholder requirements for a good outcome. Make sure everyone who is involved knows the criteria.
Gather Information
Decide what information you must have to make the decision and when and how you need it. It's easy to spend a lot of time and effort gathering information that's not actually needed or used. Make sure to gather some information that tests and challenges your basic assumptions in case they're wrong. This is especially important in situations where conditions are changing rapidly and the cost of a wrong decision is high. Record your assumptions, so you can return to them later when needed.
Decide — Draw a Conclusion
When the pressure is on, as it often is, stick with the well-planned process you've created. This is especially important — and difficult — if the team is losing focus and starting to react rather than act. Keep everyone directed towards the clear vision you used to frame your decision at the beginning of the process.
If you can't draw a conclusion, identify what the barriers are and resolve them. Then try again. This may take longer than you had planned, or feel you can take, but you're likely to spend less time than if you don't pause to fix the problem — even if you consult an outside expert to help. You don't want your team stuck in a "spin cycle" of inaction or infighting, which can be very expensive and damaging to the group.
Evaluate and Improve
Set up a way to learn from the process you've used, so you can improve decision making in the future. When enough time has passed to see the results, but not so much that it's no longer fresh, take some time to:
- Record what you thought would happen, your assumptions and predictions.
- Compare the results with what you expected to occur. Be careful here. It's easy to rewrite history (intentionally or accidentally) to make it fit the way things happened. To learn and improve, you need to take an honest look at how the process worked — or didn't.
- If the process worked, congratulate yourselves. Record what you did so you can repeat the process the next time. If it didn't go well, make note of why and what you'd do differently next time to improve the experience and outcome.
Finally, keep in mind that decision making is a process; and like any process, you can improve it — often significantly.
Jan Richards (J. G. Richards Consulting) helps Bay Area companies clarify their vision, goals, and priorities and implement strong and effective process management, enabling them to increase revenues and decrease costs. She's consulted for over 10 years with clients in the high-tech, financial services, biotech, and Internet arenas.
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