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Decision Making - Do they know how?

The best decision makers are the most experienced decision makers. Many change project teams are staffed with up and coming, though relatively inexperienced employees. The change leader should study decision making theory in order to assist the project team in making decisions that usually have a much greater impact than any they have been asked to make in their previous positions. It's difficult for these employees to have a cross-boundary view of the organization and therefore they may miss important implications of their decisions.

Where are we taught to make business decisions? Business analysis is a skill. They teach it in business school, but my experience with how well even MBAs perform this skill is mixed.

Delegation implies empowering people to make decisions. Delegation is more than simply assigning tasks. Don't assume that everyone can make decisions well. Work with your teams to test their decision making process. Observe how they go about it. Can patterns be developed which could result in team guidelines for decision making when encountering recurring issues?

Look for bottlenecks in decision making. You may find that one person is making decisions repeatedly for similar problems. If this is the case, have the experienced person develop guidelines for decision making so it can be delegated to lower levels in the organization. Otherwise, you may have a built-in barrier to growth.

The change leader should serve as a guide to help others with decision making. When helping the less experienced with decision making, Harvey Kaye in Decision Power suggests:

• Place the decision in context.
• Organize the important information.
• Formulate the decision as a problem.
• Structure the problem to cut it down to size.
• Transform the problem into a goal.

Some tips for decision making:

• Separate symptoms from the disease. A decision that fails to deal with the core problem will certainly generate an unsatisfactory solution, usually spawning new problems.
• Look at all decisions in the context of risk and reward. This approach keeps the decision in a strategic business context.
• Don't get locked in to the first solution that appears. Let a solution sit, even if just momentarily, and come back to it. Always validate your thinking. If we don't consider all the possible alternatives we are usually passing the buck to someone else for a future decision. Make it now, and make it stick.
• Speed is of the essence. Fast decisions (not snap decisions) allow more time to make adjustments as decisions are implemented and allow the team to move on to other important areas. When decisions are delayed, ensure there is justification.
• Don't let a frantic pace mask problems that require decisions. Managers usually operate in a day-to-day environment that is frantic. It's difficult to recognize obvious problems requiring decisions. One benefit of a structured change project is the opportunity during the planning phases to identify decisions that will need to be addressed.
• No action is a decision. Just make sure the no-action approach isn't simply the result of not working through the process.
• Follow-through. It's great to make a decision. You've worked hard on it. You want to put it behind you and move on to the next issue. But don't forget the follow-through. Make sure everyone understands the basis for the decision and eliminate any misinterpretations.

Magic can happen when you replicate the ability to make sound decisions within your organization.