Co-creating Productive Decisions
Tammy Turner and Dr Stefan Fothe
Identifying and evolving positive actions for future decision-making
Decision making might be the most overlooked key driver for organisational performance. While organisations can get hung up with questions of organisational design, “ultimately, a company’s value is just the sum of the decisions it makes and executes”. (Blenko et al., 2010)
It is already clear that 2020 will go down in history as a remarkably turbulent year.
Based on our work with senior leadership teams, we were curious to find out how the pandemic impacted teams’ decision making.
Given the nature of the crisis, we suspected it affected decision-making in organisations. We designed a survey to gauge two key aspects we expected to have a crucial impact on organisational decision-making:
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Remote team work
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The nature and urgency of team decisions
Our survey attracted two distinct response groups and was evenly split between Australasia and International. Circa 50% of respondents identified as Board Members or Executives while the other half of respondents work in Agile and project teams.
This split allowed us to investigate if Board/Executives have a different perspective on the change in decision-making compared to middle management. Some key responses stood out for us:
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43% disagreed: “Since the start of the crisis, we have felt pressured to make decisions without the full understanding of the risks, consequences and/or without enough information.
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52% agreed: “Since the start of the crisis, there has been a greater tendency to defer decisions to the most influential or senior leader.”
In working with teams and groups over the years, we were particularly surprised that people overall thought they were making more and better decisions than pre-pandemic; however they were making these decisions without outside input.
We are encouraged that the research clearly shows that teams are by and large coming together to make the best decisions possible during turbulent times. As a result, we encourage teams to continue to learn from this ‘unprecedented’ opportunity. Though each team and their decision processes are unique, our suggestions to embed productive decision making:
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Reflect and discuss
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Who truly needs to be involved in the decision?
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Is it actually your decision to make? If not, who’s is it?
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Who does the team need to engage to align decision outcomes?
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How can the team accept responsibility for its decisions and decisions made within the organisation?
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Consider
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Look beyond the decision.
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Focus on what’s implementable.
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Engage key stakeholders.
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Look for unintended consequences of decisions (eg. where you lock yourself in)
To find out more about how to embed team decision-making in your organisation, book a free consultation with us here.