Decision Making – the Good, the Bad and the Ugly

As business leaders, the choices you make impact performance and profit, both positively or negatively. Here we look at the process of decision making and how you can make the best possible choices.

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

Business decisions fall into three categories:

1. The Good – this involves clear accountability, good data and timely MI. It empowers teams and employs proper documentation, strong evidence and seamless implementation. This leads to great outcomes, motivated teams and prosperous businesses
2. The Bad – this has unclear accountability, dirty data, ineffectual management and poor team ownership. It delays or defers decision-making, lacks an audit trail, involves deficient implementation and leads to demotivated teams as well as stresses within an organisation
3. The Ugly – this combines all of the bad things and adds more. It leads to business stagnation and/or collapse and can result in regulatory intervention as well as director accountability issues. The outcome can have long-term and catastrophic consequences simply because those involved could not make good decisions.

The challenges around decision-making for businesses

There are so many issues around the decision-making process for businesses that sometimes straightforward things become muddled and appear more complicated than they are. 

A simpler approach is required:

• Clarify the question – taking things back to basics offers clarity
• Define who makes the decision – specifying this leads to a more effective process
• Intervene early – making difficult decisions early on, and avoiding procrastination (which in itself is a bad choice), reduces the possibility of making the wrong choices
• Avoid indecision – wavering creates uncertainty which impacts all levels of an organisation 
• Accept that decision-making can be a painful process – tough decisions have to be made and someone has to step up to make them
• Recognise that good data or Management Information [MI] (which we covered in Part 3 of this blog series) is not always available.

Most decision-makers will judge the effectiveness of their decision on its outcome, but by stepping back and considering how good the decision-making process is, better results can be achieved. There is no ‘right way’ to make good decisions – each organisation will need different outcomes, depending on its nature, size, structure etc., but some universal approaches, such as harnessing diverse ideas, searching for an optimal solution, making use of the available data, and pinpointing an objective are applicable to every organisation.

If you’re experiencing issues around decision making, where good is not being achieved consistently, or you want to improve what you have, or you just need some assurance that you are on the right track, at Brighter we have years of experience of helping clients address their decision-making frameworks, and their operational capabilities. To learn more about how we can support you, contact Simon Davis today.