Managing Decisions Well
Leading at Light Speed is a powerful leadership book by Eric Douglas revealing 10 specific ways an organization must act and behave to build trust, spark innovation, and create a high-performing organization. Chapter four identifies methods to Manage Decisions Well.
Decisions are the atoms of every organization. Every business transaction, every new product launched, every new service offered, every process made more efficient and reliable, is a result of hundreds, if not thousands, of decisions. It is important for team members to know their decision-making roles and responsibilities in order to build high levels of trust, teamwork and innovation.
For leaders who are trying to operate at light speed, this means focusing energy in areas where difficult conversations often need to occur. In the first place, this means clarifying priorities. Which is the first decision? Which decision is less important?
It also means clarifying for people their decision-making roles, which sometimes translates into people having less responsibility than they think they have. The manager of a large hospital division asked me to lunch one day and said: “I need help learning how to be a better leader. What do you see as the most important thing I need to do?My immediate answer was "Define before you delegate". Which decisions do you want to make? Which decisions are you delegating to other people? You can’t be afraid to have those discussions.”
Our research shows few managers pay much attention to managing decisions. Oftentimes, the difference between decision making and decision managing is not accounted for. They fail to give clear instructions about roles and responsibilities. Different types of decision processes can be confused. They don’t know the appropriate vocabulary – for example, they confuse collaboration with consensus. It is a failure to lay out decision processes in an organic flow, showing all team members their own roles. As a result, they fail to leverage themselves as leaders. There is alway a danger of empowering others too much or too little. Only failure is achieved when there is no ideal balance of trust, cooperation and innovation.
The day-to-day inputs and outputs of any organization consist of its decisions. Operating at light speed means leaders must build systems resulting in across-the-board good decisions throughout the organization. It is important to teach team members how to manage decisions within the scope of the organizational core values and vision. It is necessary to re-evaluate the difficult decisions and how they are communicated out. Delegations must be clear. Otherwise, the sludge of bureaucracy creeps in and paralyzes the organization. Most importantly, people must shift their orientation from making decisions to managing them.
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