Napolean Bonaparte's Tomb (CSD - Oct. 2015)
Welcome to week 2 of our Organizational Change class! This week, we’re looking at quality decision making.
We watched a YouTube™ posted by Harvard Business Publishing that covered the topic of how companies could improve their decision-making processes (2010). Marcia Blenko of Bain & Co. was interviewed about her experiences as an Organizational Development practitioner assisting companies in improving their decision speed and quality.
One of the points Ms. Blenko asserts is that decision effectiveness correlates positively with employee engagement and organizational performance. In my opinion, she is absolutely correct. My personal experience has been that working for a person or leadership team that is capable of making effective, timely decisions is a far more enjoyable situation than working for those who cannot. Having experienced both situations, I have striven to be as decisive as possible when making decisions that impact the team I run. The feedback, both explicit and implicit, has been very positive. My team is very engaged, has a high level of job satisfaction, and are very high performing. In fact, two of my managers are being considered for positions of higher authority and responsibility. I expect they will be moving on in the next few months. I’m very proud of them.
To tie that idea in further, I believe that decision effectiveness is a major portion of the measure of trust that employees will extend their leadership. The higher the quality of decisions that are made, the higher the level of trust employees will be willing to give. The “bank account” of trust the employees generate have can be drawn upon by leadership. Long ago I was given a bit of advice by a mentor. He said, “Carl, always remember that in business (and in most of life – CSD) it takes 10 ‘atta-boys’ to make up for one ‘oh, #$@&!’.” In other words, a lot of good work can be wiped away or forgotten by making one mistake. In business leadership, a track record of good decisions will go a long way to building up the trust needed for when that bad decision comes along.
Conversely, a leader or leadership team that is slow to make decisions, or that consistently makes poor decisions will have find that the employee trust account quickly overdrawn. The employees become disengaged and the high performers will begin to look for opportunities to go to work for a different and higher performing team. As Yukl noted, “Decision quality refers to the objective aspects of the decision that affect group performance aside from any effects mediated by decision acceptance.” (2013, p. 112) Yukl indicated, as did Ms. Blenko, that the size of the decision is often irrelevant. Many seemingly small decisions have far reaching effects over time, making them just as important as high profile decisions.
If good decision making was easy, there wouldn’t be a section in Barnes & Noble™ full of books about doing it correctly. There are any number of ways to make less than optimal decisions. Start with making decisions without understanding the context or situation of the decision. The next impediment would be not having enough information. The other end of that spectrum is known as “paralysis by analysis” where too much investigating is done before committing to a decision. Another impediment is not wanting to take the responsibility for a decision. I have seen a few managers who believed they couldn’t get in trouble for decisions they “never made”. They aren’t employed at the companies I knew them at anymore. Not getting buy-in from the people affected by the decision will definitely impede the decision implementation or making process. Communication breakdowns will drive bad decision making, too.
In the Harvard Business Publishing interview (2010), Ms. Blenko names four elements of good decision making. She posits that Quality, Speed, Yield, and Effort are the keys to optimal decisions. I think it is interesting that one of the elements put forth is whether the decision is of high quality! We are rating whether or not the decision was good by asking if it was a good decision to start. Feels like a circular argument to me. The argument is somewhat semantical in that the other elements are as impactful over time, and taken as a group, they allow for a measure of overall quality. I do not believe there is an element missing from her list. The categories she provides are broad enough to allow for any other impactful elements to be considered.
Applying what I have learned from this lesson will be relatively easy. I am reminded of the way LEAN® processes were once described to me by a facilitator at a company at which I was working. They said, “LEAN® is just common sense written down.” I feel like Ms. Blenko has managed to do the same with decision quality. If I make high-quality, expedient decisions that are applied as I intended with just the right amount of effort, I should have an excellent batting average at good decision making! No, getting all those holes in the Swiss cheese to line up so the decisions I make can be good all the time is the bigger issue.
As it seems to be with almost all other situations that involve more than one person, communication will be key. The quality of the decision is enhanced with information and multiple perspectives. Those are derived via communication. Yield and effort are enhanced via clear and concise communication. Speed is a function of yield and effort and is therefore impacted by communication, too.
I have found that a team that is hearing the same message can operate on their own much more smoothly and efficiently. I keep them as informed as I can, while protecting them from noise and distraction. In doing so, they now have the foundations to make good decisions on their own, when they need to.
See you next week!
Publishing, H. B. (2010). How Companies Make Better Decisions, Faster - An Interview with Marcia Blenko - Leader, Bain & COmpany's Global Organization Practice. HBR Ideacast.
Yukl, G. (2012). Leadership in Organizations, Pearson Education, Inc.
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