List
Print This Post Print This Post

Many organizations claim that they have a problem with decision making. Maybe, or maybe not. There are at least three types.

Type 1. It’s impossible, difficult or a nightmare to make decisions. Why? Pick a reason: premises not clear; too many cooks, to many people involved; risk aversion, etc. People are stuck. Decisions are always postponed. ‘People can not make up their minds in this place!’

Type 2. Decisions are made. Actually, it is not that difficult. The real problem is that nothing much happens after the decision is made. ‘People don’t follow up’, is the common expression.

Type 2a. ‘People don’t follow up’: People who need to implement are lazy, and lousy. Managers of the people who need to implement are also lazy and lousy. There is no implementation ethos, no sense of urgency. Why is this possible? You don’t need to have a PhD in Psychology to understand: not doing something has no consequences. Translation: people can get away with murder. ‘Excuses management’ is a cultural competence.

Type 2b. ‘People don’t follow up’: Decisions are made but the level of credibility of the people making decisions, or the leaders above sanctioning, for that matter, is weak, perhaps close to zero. Why? In part because they change their mind all the time and a week later another decision will be made that sort of overruns the previous one. So, actually, not implementing is quite clever, it’s energy saving, and part of the survival kit. If you wait long enough to implement A, you will not have to do it because you’ll have a B. And if you wait long enough to implement B, you may meet a C soon. And the year is long enough to accommodate an entire alphabet.

So, the generic ‘we have a problem with decision making’ does not say much until you deconstruct the problem. In my non scientific, consolidated survey of my own consulting work as organizational architect in the last years, and backed by my teams’ views, Type 2B is by and large the greatest problem, followed by 2a and a long way away from Type 1.

Gold medal, the winning is, Type 2b. Decisions are made but not implemented as a ‘energy saving’. The problem is hardly ‘decision making’; it is trust, credibility, reputation, leadership, good management, you name it.

Silver medal, Type 2a. Decisions are made but there is a very lousy/lazy (non) implementation, and ‘that’s ok’.  The issue is also not in the decision making itself but in the culture of performance (or lack of) and a poor reward and recognition system that allows people to get away with it.

Distant Bronze, a true decision making issue, type 1.

I’ve seen many true exaggerations of 2a. Company cultures where nothing happens for days, or weeks, where employees (and managers) could be absent and nobody would notice; where decisions are virtually dis-connected from implementation. By the later I mean, it is simply expected that it will not be implemented, or not just now. The pleasure has been in the decision. And the powerpoints. You may think that I am talking about medium size companies, poorly managed, about to go under, and just terrible. But I am talking about big corporations at the top of so and so ranking. No kidding.

Obviously, in these machineries (the word company or organization should not be used) some slow motion parts of the engine room may have no immediate consequences in the movement of the super tank. And it moves, and moves, veeeeeery slowly. Despite a few hundred decisions not live.

Key point is, avoid using ‘having a problem in decision making’ as a generic. When you hear that, dig in. You may find trust, credibility, positive reinforcement of lack of performance, anything. Sometimes decision making.

Keep up with the Daily Thoughts

Twitter Email

Would you like to comment?

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

To search my website, please use the form below.

  Daily Thoughts

May 19th, 2023

Value is an overused term in business and, as such, it’s becoming meaningless

Value, as usually used, means transactional monetary value. Usually it doesn’t mean intrinsic value, or value per se. For example, […]

May 4th, 2023

The importance of ‘critical thinking.’ Your own critical thinking is more effective at making your workplace better than any generic employee survey.

Build your own Employee Engagement argument for free. You can’t go wrong. Here are three baskets full of concepts: Basket […]

April 21st, 2023

´Busy-Ness’ Is A Trap

I went to a big conference where I was introduced by the chairman like this: “Welcome everybody. Lovely to have […]

April 14th, 2023

Training and culture change. The love affair that ends in tears.

It seems to be very hard for people to get away from the idea that if we just put individuals […]

April 11th, 2023

Teamocracies and Networkracies have different citizens: in-Habitants in team-work, riders in net-work

The old view of the organization is something close to the old concept of a medieval city, where citizenship was […]

April 5th, 2023

3 Ways To Get Approval From Your CEO Or Your Leadership Team

Way number 1: My team has developed these three options, A, B and C. Which one do you want us […]

March 29th, 2023

A Cheat Sheet To Create A Social Movement Tip = to shape organizational culture since both are the same.

Mobilizing people. This is another of the Holy Grails (how many have I said we have?) in management. Whether you […]

March 16th, 2023

Critical Thinking Self-Test: A 10 Point Health Check For Your Organization And Yourself. If any of these are a good picture of your organization, you need to put ‘critical thinking’ in the water supply.

Test yourself, and your organization. Do any of these apply? Doing lots, too fast without thinking. High adrenaline, not sure […]

March 9th, 2023

A culture of safety or a culture of training in safety?

Cultures are created by behaviours becoming the norm. Safety is at the core of many industries. Significant budgets are allocated […]

March 2nd, 2023

Empowerment is an output. If you can visualize it, you can craft it.

The real question is, what do you want to see happening so that you can say ‘people are empowered’? Employee […]

February 24th, 2023

A simple question will jumpstart your organization into change. It will also save you from months of pain spent reorganizing your people and teams.

The following line will short-cut months of (building) ‘alignment’, integration, reorganization, team building, coalition building, and any situation in which Peter, […]

February 20th, 2023

Lead Via Peer-To-Peer Networks – If you don’t lead via peer-to-peer networks, you’re only driving your car in first gear.

Peer-to-peer work, transversal, spontaneous or not, collaboration, peer-to-peer influence, peer-to-peer activities of Viral Change™ champions or activists, all of this is the […]

February 7th, 2023

Write a script, not a strategic plan

If you care about the journey and the place, you need a story. If you have a good, compelling one, […]

January 26th, 2023

3 self-sabotaging mechanisms in organizations

Organizations, like organisms, have embedded mechanisms of survival, of growth and also of self-sabotage. These are 3 self-sabotage systems to […]

January 10th, 2023

Who should be involved in culture change? All inclusive versus going where the energy is.

Many times, in my consulting work, I find myself facing a dilemma: Do I involve many people on the client’s […]

December 23rd, 2022

Tell what won’t change – Introducing 1 of my 40 rules of change

In any change programme that any organization wants to start, they will start by thinking of the things that they […]

December 16th, 2022

Scale It – Introducing 1 of my 40 rules of change

When creating effective change in any organization, there are 40 rules that, in my experience, are the key between success […]

December 5th, 2022

Assets & Strengths Base – Introducing 1 of my 40 rules of change

For more than 30 years I have been involved in ‘change’ in organizations. Again and again, some fundamental principles, and often […]

November 25th, 2022

Campaign It… is 1 of my 40 rules of change

When you filter out the noise, when you try to extract the core, the fundamentals, those ‘universal rules’ of change […]

October 31st, 2022

Hybrid or not hybrid? That’s not the question…

Culture is the new workplace If you want to have a conversation about the future of work, the nature of […]

October 24th, 2022

‘Powered by Viral Change™’: A Social Transformation Platform for the organization of the 21st Century

When we started to work on Viral Change™, as a way to create large scale behavioural and cultural change, and […]

October 14th, 2022

Corporate tribes, intellectual ghettos and open window policies

We talk a lot about silos in organizations usually in the context of Business Units or divisions. But these are not […]

October 7th, 2022

Peer Networks are the strongest force of action inside the organization

Peer-to-peer works, transversal, spontaneous or not, collaboration, peer-to-peer influence, peer-to-peer activities of Viral Change™ champions or activists, all of this is […]

September 30th, 2022

Change that doesn’t deliver change-ability is a waste

The traditional model of change is the one I call ‘destination’ type, that is, how to go from A to […]

September 23rd, 2022

Company structures: aggregate and disaggregate

New organizations, and old ones in the business of transforming themselves, would be better off learning by heart these two […]

September 15th, 2022

3 Self-Sabotaging Mechanisms in Organizations

Organizations, like organisms, have embedded mechanisms of survival, of growth and also of self-sabotage. These are 3 self-sabotage systems to […]

September 2nd, 2022

The best organizational model is to have more than one under the same roof

Command and control management has fewer friends, and it’s quite terminally ill as well. The heirs are fighting for a piece […]

August 26th, 2022

Unprecedented Times? Sure. Let’s Move On Please.

Somewhere in the post-Covid peak, I promised myself that I wasn’t going to pay attention anymore to anything that starts with […]

August 19th, 2022

Engagement, Empowerment and Ownership Culture Meet at One Single Point. Obvious, Simple and Incredibly Forgotten

Employee engagement efforts, ownership values and empowerment behaviours must meet at one point. It’s simple, not terribly controversial, based upon […]

August 12th, 2022

Employee Engagement and the Productivity Magnet

For me, the most damaging use of the employee engagement framework is the widespread one that states that ‘engagement’ predicts […]