TO BE OR NOT TO BE?

Timely and effective decision-making on management level is a key factor driving the performance of a business organization.

Deciding about strategic choices, or solving operational challenges, is a complex skill relying on data analysis capacity, sound judgement, logical thinking, ability to trust one's own intuition as a distillation of previous experience and last, but not least, a strength of character enabling one to take risks and responsibility.

The management consulting firm Bain, performing a survey of more than 750 companies, found a clear correlation of 95% between the corporation`s financial results and their effectiveness in terms of decision-making. Another insight of the survey showed business organizations that are especially good at making and executing strategic decisions report returns nearly 6% higher than their competitors.

Research by consulting firm McKinsey, with more than thousand managers from global companies, gave clear indications of increasing levels of frustration from broken decision-making processes, with the slow pace of decision-making and with the inconsistent quality of the results from the decision-making. Less than half of the survey participants reported that decisions are timely, and more than 60% say that at least half the time spent making them is ineffective.

How can business leaders improve their decision-making capacity and performance?

Decision-making is not a eureka moment of revelation. It is a process, and assuming a structured step-by-step approach could help gain control and ensuring its effectiveness and efficiency:

• A viable approach would be to first frame the issue at hand to ensure you ask the right questions and there is full clarity on what needs to be decided.
• From there, build your team to analyze the problem and craft a viable solution.
• Make sure you stimulate discussion and debate and you have more than one possible solution both passionately presented and constructively challenged.

According to Schlesinger it is critical to ensure the pieces are in place for implementation. An effective team decision-making process encompasses:

• Shared goals that were presented upfront
• Ensuring diversity in the decision-making team
• Skillful management of group dynamics and providing psychological safety
• Alternative options that have been given rigorous thought and fair consideration
• Sound methods for exploring decisions’ consequences

By following a structured, multi-step process, you can make well informed, effective decisions and achieve the desired outcome. But even the not so perfect decision is often far better than no decision at all. 

As  Gordon Graham wisely pointed out, “Decision is a sharp knife that cuts clean and straight; indecision, a dull one that hacks and tears and leaves ragged edges behind it.”