Decision making is hard. When you’re a leader, people often look to you to make decisions. For some leaders, it’s all they do, or the most important part of what they do. For individual decision makers, there’s great advice available. But when you’re part of a team, knowing whose decision it is to make, and ensuring that it’s made at the right time (and well) can be the factor that creates a positive cultural dynamic or the wedge that drives it apart. For organizations and individuals, it’s the difference between success and failure.
So how do decisive leaders make decisions? And how do they assess the decisions to be made? There are a few key factors to consider when faced with important decisions – taken together, these can be used as a framework for most situations, big or small.
- Assess
- Speed
- Input
- Reaction
ASSESSMENT
First, assessing the decision. It’s important to understand what you’re dealing with in advance. A decision made without any kind of assessment is just an impulse, and likely to return the same as you invested in it upfront – very little.
Who’s decision is it? That can be a critical question to ask early on. In a large organization, it’s likely there is someone who’s best suited to make this decision, based on their experience, expertise, and domain. Empowering that person will likely produce the best result, and reinforce positive team dynamics along the way. Getting that wrong can not only risk an uninformed decision but also break down trust within a team. Leaders who insist on making all the decisions, or regularly make decisions without consulting their teams may be suffering from something I call benevolent dictator syndrome [link].
Is this a private decision or a public decision? That question will determine how broadly you communicate and consult upfront, and throughout the process. Base this on who will be affected by the decision, and remember that they will be impacted by this decision is a reason to include someone, not a reason not to. Many organizations hide decisions that will affect their employees – and alienate them in the process.
Is this a fast or slow decision? While no decision should be made on impulse, some do need to move quickly. Consider the consequences of the decision. First-mover’s advantage is real in many cases, and the speed at which a decision should be reached is important to spell out in advance. This will help avoid analysis paralysis within a team or committee, and ensure everyone’s clear on how to prioritize their time and effort. Similarly, decisions that benefit from a lot of data or analysis will take time – and that expectation should be set early on.
SPEED
As determined during the initial assessment, some decisions should be made quickly and some should be made slowly. I’m going to go out on a limb here and suggest that most decisions should be made quickly. Teams and organizations love to belabor a point, and it’s easy for groups to get locked in analysis paralysis. Agile teams have realized that moving fast and reacting to the results can create a feedback loop that works better than deep analysis – in some cases.
When to move fast? By moving quickly, you have the chance to get an idea out there and adjust based on how it’s received. If you’re faster than others, it may not matter if you get it wrong. By moving quickly, you can correct for errors as quickly as you make them, and have an improved product or service before your competitors have even launched. This implicit truth has led to the tired axiom, “move fast and break things”.
When to move slow? Crucially, some things can’t afford to be broken. If a decision is data-intensive, has an irreversible impact, or has a large reputational risk involved, it’s probably worth it to go slow and get it right the first time.
Communicate to all involved. No matter what speed you choose to move at, use good inclusive communication to ensure all team members are on the same page. Nothing is worse than sending your overworked Data Science or Analytics team on a deep-sea diving expedition to work up a report, only to find the decision has already been made. Set clear deadlines for when the decision needs to be made, and communicate it broadly to everyone who’s involved.
INPUTS
No decision should be made in a vacuum. Even when moving fast, having the right inputs is key. Again, impulsive decisions will create reckless results. Jeff Bezos uses an oft-quoted policy at Amazon of high velocity decision-making. In his estimation, having 70% of the information you need is enough – waiting for 90% or more will mean moving too slow. And crucially, an organization with sufficient agility to compete in their marketplace should be able to react to new information when it comes in (more on that below)
Get the right information. Outline the questions you need to know upfront. Based on the speed you need to move at, you should be judicious about this; don’t ask 1,000 questions if you want to make a decision by the end of the week. Decide what you absolutely need to know and write it down. Know that questions will lead to more questions, so focus on the biggest ones, and the root-cause questions. The answers to those may well address subsequent questions you come up with. Commit to this list – once you have the answers to these questions, you’ll have the information you need to decide. Don’t waffle, or your decision will drag on forever. Remember, there’s no end to the questions you can ask, but they’ll all be answered once you test the idea out.
Get good information. Trust your sources. Once you’ve outlined the questions you need to answer, determine where you need to go for that information. Again, be clear about this. Ensure the sources you seek out are trustworthy – it’s possible they’ll tell you something you don’t want to hear. Deciding to seek out a second opinion when the information comes back can cause crucial delays, and undermine the trust of your organization. Questioning the answers you’ve asked for can lead to deeper understanding, but can easily become a form of shadow procrastination, and can muddle the message you are sending to your teams.
REACT
Nimble organizations are always ready to react. Putting your idea into the market is the best way to test it, but when you do you’re going to learn something – often very quickly! If you’ve invested the time to make a good decision, at the right speed, moving too slow once it’s in the market can make all of that coordination a waste.
If you made a 70%-decision, odds are you’ll continue learning as you develop the idea or product. That’s ok, and you shouldn’t be afraid to adjust as you learn more. Odds are high that the remaining information won’t radically change your path, and if it does, changing course likely saved you more effort than you wasted.
If you waited for all the right information, and are still surprised by what happens when you release the concept, you should pause to hindsight. Did you make the decision too slow? Did you miss-assess its importance or impact? Did the risk factors that caused you to take the slow path actually come true?
Once your idea is out there, everything becomes a learning opportunity. Whether it’s feedback on the decision itself or feedback on the process of making that decision, agile organizations (and strong, empathetic leaders) will find value in the lesson itself.
Investing in a test and learn culture can help organizations build a muscle to move fast and learn fast; good decision-making habits can be both a result of, and an enabler to, that cultural shift.