Effective Decision Making
Bob De Contreras Thursday, January 03, 2008
Do you ever stop, take a deep breath and ask yourself how you can make better business decisions? If you’re like other CEOs and top executives the answer is, “probably not.” You’ve read about decision making and problem solving strategies, just like we have. So, why is it we continue to be able to help our clients solve business problems that they have not been able to resolve themselves? The answer is that good decision making alone is not sufficient to solve business problems. Capable management with analysis skills, change initiation capabilities and solid change control that directly addresses the right problem and supports the decision are also required.
Think about the last time you had one of those “aha” moments when you made a decision and later discovered that the solution didn’t work, and with further analysis discover that your solution had little to do with the real problem? To get to a good decision, it is necessary to be focused on the right problem which consequently becomes the foundation to good decision making. This process starts with a critical analysis through probing questions. By objectively asking and answering critical, focused, probing questions you will often discover that what you thought was the problem is not the problem at all. Sometimes it’s like acting as a five year old kid, asking why, why, why until you really get to the core issue. You may discover that there is some underlying problem or set of problems that are causing what you thought was the issue. Look at this as a goal of simplifying complex issues. Don’t allow yourself to go any further until you clearly understand the problem, else you will be suffering wasted time and effort on solutions that won’t work.
Whatever the result of this critical analysis, it will most assuredly result in a more complete and precise definition of the problem which will lead to much more focused solutions when you get to the solution development phase.
Your critical analysis will often find that there are multiple problems. It is important to discover how they are related, if at all, and then to prioritize them. At this point, you will have more information about the problems that will change their importance and scope and therefore their priority.
You will need to establish criteria for prioritization, but more often than not, it will be based on which problem is most painful and has the most impact on the success of the business. CEOs often focus on the issue that is causing them the most grief when they should be prioritizing based on what is best for the business.
Throughout the process discussed above, force yourself to “think outside the box.” You’ve heard that, but what does it mean?
- When you think you have asked the last critical question be sure that you really are at the root cause of the problem by forcing yourself to ask two more questions.
- When the answer to a question is “I don’t know,” ask yourself what the answer would be IF you did know (i.e., you may really know but may not want to admit it). In other words, keep digging and bring more people into the process that might know the answer.
- It is often a great idea to bring people into the critical analysis process who are simply good problem solvers and who are not involved in the problem being analyzed. You will get greater objectivity in the analysis.
- Sometimes younger or newer members of your team can come up with better questions or alternatives because they are not burdened with history, baggage, or “we always do it this way” thinking.
- In this critical analysis, don’t allow any discussion about a solution. Not only is it a waste of time, but it undermines the objectivity that is needed to really get at the root causes of the problem.
At this point it’s time to question your answers. This is something that the Paladin and Associates partners have perfected. A couple of psychologists have told us that this is what makes us different and allows us to be so helpful to our clients. Therefore you need someone special to help you with this step. You need someone who can bring more insight to the problem(s), be able to see the forest for the trees and be able to differentiate all aspects of the problem with all aspects of your business. The person can be a partner, executive coach or an insightful executive on your team. The process to question your answers is to:
- Tell your executive coach about the problem, the questions you asked about it, the answers you came up with and how you prioritized them.
- Your coach gives you feedback by telling you what he or she heard and adding other questions and/or answers to what you came up with.
- This is an iterative technique of looping through all the aspects of the problem, the questions that were asked and the answers that were given.
Now you’re ready to circle the wagons and convert the answer or those answers into a solution or solutions. If you have been insightful you discovered in the “question your answers” phase that there are some common answers that solve multiple problems. Those are the answers that form the solution. By deciding on the solution you have completed making the decision on how to solve the business problem.
Believe it or not you’ve just completed the easy part of solving a business problem. The work starts when you have to initiate the change(s) that is the solution. To this point you may have only had two or three people involved in the decision. Now you must overcome fear of the unknown and initiate the change. To solve the problem may involve the entire company and a lot of resistance to the change. This situation and these issues will be the subject of next month’s news letter.
In summary, form a clear and concise statement of the problem as you understand it, including the rationale for its root cause. Get confirmation from the other participants in the process that they now see the problem as it is currently defined. This assures that everyone accepts and understands a single definition of the problem.
