Decisions... Decisions...
Every day we make decisions, no matter what our job or organisation. As we progress up the hierarchy, the nature of decisions may change, but not necessarily the number or pace. The further we go, the more the proverbial “buck” stops with us as we have more colleagues who refer upwards.
Decision-making has been the subject of innumerable studies, literature, experiments and training courses. I’ve been on “Problem-Solving and Decision-Making” courses and been faced with decisions all my life as an expatriate and manager. What strikes me is that, despite all the studies, books and experiments, we still only have a basic understanding of the process people go through in different situations.
Decisions usually arise because we are presented with a problem and have to select a course of action. In some cases, this may be easy (for example, we decide notto cross a road when there is a vehicle approaching nearby because we have been taught that this isn’t safe). This is what one might call a “black and white” or “open and shut” case, requiring little deep thinking because we have been told that it isn’t safe to cross the road in front of an approaching vehicle.
Now change the scenario: suppose the vehicle isn’t thatclose and, if we don't cross the street, there will be other consequences (e.g. missing a bus or train). It now becomes a question of judging distance, speed and time for the vehicle to get to where we stand against our speed in getting out of its way and how important we think it is to get on that bus/train and whether we think that the driver of the vehicle will stop or slow down sufficiently to let us through.
This is a simple illustration of the factors that influence our decisions. In the above case, a young, fit person who needsto catch that bus may look at the oncoming vehicle, see that the driver is watching them and decide it’s safe to risk crossing.
The factors that I see influencing our decisions are plenty, including:
- Availability of information or lack of it;
- The need for “original thinking” or “problem-solving” vs following a manual;
- Whether the decision is “urgent” or “not urgent”;
- Whether the matter in front of us is “difficult” or “easy”;
- Whether the matter in front of us is “important” or “not important”;
- Our priorities at the time;
- Health considerations;
- Fatigue;
- Perception of the situation/situational awareness;
- Confidence;
- Experience;
- Pressure to perform;
- Past precedent;
- Perception of what may happen if the “wrong” decision is made;
- Perception of one’s own “infallibility”.
In his book Black Box Thinking Matthew Syed looks at peoples’ actions in light of many of the factors above. His conclusion is always that one needs to examine decisions taken in light of the circumstances surrounding the action and that this leads to better learning and decision-making in the future.
Equally, the fun Lost at Sea exercise shows us that, in general, groups make better decisions (even if only marginally better) than individuals.
In certain businesses and cultures, “failure” is stigmatised ad the result is:
- “Passing the buck”;
- “Covering our backs”.
Look at many of the hospital dramas in TV and the first reaction to a botched operation is “What are the legal implications?” or “How do we defend ourselves?” rather than “What can we learn from what went wrong to prevent it happening again?”.
Decision-making is still a relatively little understood science, but what helps is to understand how weourselves go through the process based on different circumstances. How do you think you do?
I have spent more than half my life delivering change in different world markets from the most developed to “emerging” economies. With more than 20 years in international financial services around the world running different operations and lending businesses, I started my own Consultancy to provide solutions for improving performance, productivity and risk management. I work with individuals, small businesses, charities, quoted companies and academic institutions across the world. An international speaker, trainer, author and fund-raiser, I can be contacted by email. My websiteprovides a full picture of my portfolio of services. For strategic questions that you should be asking yourself, follow me at @wkm610.
Labels: Leadership, Strategy, Teamwork
posted by William Martin @ 10:25
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