Which One?
Deciding on your dessert at a lovely evening out with friends can be hard. Is it the lemon mousse with white and dark chocolate? The strawberry shortcake? Tarte Tatin? Blackberry or peach sorbet? OK, you might make a choice you regret, or it just may not arrive and look or taste as you expected, but seriously this is not a complex decision: you won’t let anyone down, you can’t really make a bad decision here. Your dessert decision is simply a matter of choice, your choice alone. According to some scientific research, adults make around 35,000 conscious decisions every day, while others estimate that number to be as high as 350,000. Deciding on the initial path to take, and the nature of the decision, whether it be a simple choice of sweet, or more, is definitely a huge part of our lives as leaders.
Along with every day, low stakes decisions, more complex decisions, made by leaders at all levels in organizations, are typically a bit weightier. Perhaps you are deciding on someone’s future in the firm, a massive outlay of expenditure that requires financial cuts elsewhere to fund, or whether or not to discontinue a function or program within your organization—affecting hundreds of people. Do we always recognize and acknowledge a complex decision as it looks us in the face, or are we thinking dessert? Sorting out types of decisions is a good first step if you want to do it right.
It's a given that complicated or multi-level decision-making produces all kinds of emotions and states of mind: fear, anxiety, uncertainty, overthinking or even the inability to act. And as we face making these decisions, can we readily access our ability to ask: what kind of a decision is this, and what are the long-term implications?
There’s a case to be made that decision-making requires both prediction and judgement, and that perhaps the two go hand-in-hand. When a leader actively and intentionally follows the pace and direction of their work, they can often see that the need for a decision is coming down the line. In the schools that I work with, a decision might relate to canceling a program or a set of academic courses. The factors involved might be: historic lack of interest in this aspect of the curriculum, lower enrolment over a period of time, and smaller classes to draw from at the grade levels where these courses are typically offered. The decision will be both complex and perhaps obvious: reduce the number of courses offered, discontinue the program, lay off one or two teachers. The complexity might relate to timing, communication and the effect on school culture, personnel and reputation. And this is where judgment comes in too: When? How? Who? The predictive part of making a decision comes from deep knowledge of the circumstances, and ensuring you have the right people around the table at all stages before any decisions are made. The judgement frequently kicks in as the decision is first being made, and then again when it is communicated more widely. Prediction and judgement rely on similar skill sets: familiarity with the context and possible stages in the making of the decision. Including the right team of people, who understand and bring their collective judgement to finalizing the decision, will always aid your ability to take the right direction.
Good decisions can in fact build organizational resilience; you may be able to say: we did that together; it worked. It was a solid, comprehensible decision in response to a complex set of issues. Might we follow the method used that first time to do it again? Or, what did we learn and how might we improve? When lay-offs are made at an organization, for example, no aspect of this decision will ever be easy. When they are made well, with advanced warning, decent termination packages and respect for the employees, these difficult decisions can be seen as part of institutional strength. As it creates resilience, building a model for good-decision-making within your place of work can also help create and nurture productive and generative culture. Creating an approach and a narrative of strong, clear and reasoned decision-making gives everyone something to rely on and build upon for the future, however excruciating a difficult decision may be.
Sometimes only certain individuals can make these tough calls—this is a rich example of the loneliness of leadership. It is difficult, even for an experienced leader to make the call that only they can make, without it being something they have done already. Firing an employee for an irrefutable action against the rules of the company may never be easy, but it is usually clear; other complex “first-time” decisions will always be difficult. Knowing more about what is a “high stakes” decision in your place of work, rather than a “low stakes” one will nearly always be your first step. That means a deep check into the DNA of your organization through conversations with trusted advisors at all levels. “Doing right” is infinitely more important than merely “looking right” and doing right certainly sets you up nicely for the next time when you may have to make some tough choices.
Given the high number of decisions we all make each day, we might easily become quite debilitated if we overthink making them! Deciding which one Is definitely a layer cake—the first layer might be quite straightforward, but it is always worth considering the whole cake, the meal and the menu as you consider how complex your next steps will be. Unless it’s a true emergency or immediate crisis, gather and consider the data and choose next steps wisely and well for the sake of your organization. And definitely, when you can, just eat the cake!