decision making

“The future winning organizations will be those organizations that will have a common decision making process in place and who trained all their staff in it.”

Harvard Business Review, June 2004

Everyone will have their own idea of what is a good decision making culture and what is not a good decision making culture, but one thing that everyone will agree on is that most organizations need to improve the way they make decisions. You can ask individuals in any organization about the skills of their immediate superior and you will not always get accolades. When you ask them what they see as poor performance then they will give you a combination of the following:

• Nobody asked us and we are the ones who need to implement this!
• Poor decision making meetings, in fact, it is a waste of time!
• The boss thinks she is accountable, and therefore she must make the decision.
• My boss is autocratic and he does not allow for any participation.
• Most times the information we are working with is suspect.
• There is no logic in the way we are making decisions in this company and in most cases it gets re-done within two months.

Sounds familiar? The business of decision making is all about winning the hearts and souls of the end users and recipients of the outcomes of the decision. Having said this, it then makes the job of decision making less factual and information driven and more psychological.

The Main Components of a Decision Culture

1. Collaboration – This is the ability to identify the correct stakeholders for every decision and then to have the correct participation strategy to involve them. The three major components of collaboration are:
• Stakeholder orientation and involvement
• Decision making practices
• Implementation strategies
  
2. Process – This is the ability to use the correct approach to decision making and then for the rest of the team to follow the same approach, making it a common decision making approach. The three major components of Process are:
• Information gathering
• Information processing
• Information accuracy

All six of these sub-components are measurable in any company and this makes it possible to create a profile of a successful and a not so successful decision making culture. The measurement of this and the state of a specific company’s decision culture can be stated in one of the following nine culture states:

Nine Culture States

The worst state is that of “dictating” and can be equaled to that of a dictator…no collaboration and no process. This kind of culture does not allow for stakeholder inputs and has no process for gathering relevant information.

The best state is that of “decision leadership”. A company with this decision culture allows for stakeholder inputs, excellent at implementation and normally uses a facilitator in decision making meetings. This culture allows information sharing at most levels and always makes decisions based on the best information available.

Products and Services

Thinking Dimensions has various products and services to improve decision making practices in any type of organization. The following are a few of these:

1. Decision making workshops – Thinking Dimensions can train your company employees in the various decision making processes and collaboration approaches to enable them to improve implementation of decisions.
2. Decision making consulting – An experienced Thinking Dimensions consultant will analyze and provide feedback on how any team can improve their decision making practices within their own area. This consulting will also be brought into the meeting situation where these approaches could make a total difference in how results are achieved in meetings.
3. Decision surveys – TDI would be able to conduct a decision survey that would accurately diagnose the company’s existing decision culture. The aim is not to label a company’s decision culture, but to use it as the springboard to move the culture to the next best possible level.