Decisions, Decisions…
With the US election less than a week away, decision making has been on my mind. In any other election year, deciding between candidates, political parties, or ballot initiatives might be the most important example of decision making in action. But 2020 has been anything but business as usual. The prolonged pandemic has forced business leaders to make more tough decisions under novel circumstances than even the Great Recession.
As any fan of the TV show, Hoarders, will know, decision making is a social, emotional, and logistical process that can be psychologically difficult even in the best of times. For business leaders, the added pressure of being responsible for the livelihood of the organization, its people, and its customers can turn decision making into a difficult task. With Covid-19 impacting everything from the supply chain, to production, delivery, and demand, leaders need a strategy and process to reliably generate good decisions in the face of uncertainty.
Decision makers know and accept that not every decision they make will be a good one, but having a process such as the Cynefin Framework can help stack the deck in their favor. David Snowden and Mary Boone provided a useful Cynefin (a Welsh word pronounced kunev-in) overview in a 2007 article in the Harvard Business Review. Cynefin starts with an analysis of the decision to be made and provides guidance on the most important job to be done, risks to be avoided, and productive decision making strategies that leaders can use to respond to the situation.
Begin by determining the context in which the decision will be carried out. Ordered decisions occur in situations where cause and effect are known, are clearly understood, and where systems dictate the choices or options available to respond. This is the realm of fact-based management. The opposite extreme is unordered decisions. Unordered decisions occur in situations where cause and effect are uncertain or have broken down, systems are in flux, and there are few, if any, certainties about the choices or options available. This is the realm of pattern-based management. Ordered decisions are further broken down into decisions that are complicated or simple. Complicated decisions call for choosing between multiple “right” answers, involve incomplete data, and call for rigorous analysis. For simple decisions, the most important thing for leaders to do is to categorize the decision to be made correctly so that they can effectively be addressed by adapting industry best practices and delegation. Most senior leaders are well equipped to handle ordered decision making regardless of whether it presents as a simple or complicated. Unordered decisions present a much greater challenge.
Unordered decisions are broken down into decisions that are complex or chaotic. Complex decisions involve non-linear relationships and shifting constraints. Complex decisions often require leaders to create time and space for patterns, trade-offs, and new insights to emerge in ways that clarify the way forward. For chaotic decisions, the most important thing for leaders to do is to respond immediately, shift the decision-making context away from chaos, and to rally the troops to restore order. A fifth decision type is also identified that is neither ordered or unordered. Disordered decisions occur during organizational turmoil that compels leaders to break issues down into component parts and assign each sub-decision to be made into its proper frame as a simple, complicated, complex, or chaotic decision to be made.
Once categorized, the Leader Guide below provides insight into the job to be done, risks to be avoided, and strategies to use to respond to the situation appropriately.
I encourage any leader who wants to make better decisions to read the Snowden & Boon article, and explore the Cynefin framework to see what it can do for them. In addition to the structured approach I shared in this article, the framework offers rich insights into the decision-making risks associated with each decision type. It also offers an entire taxonomy of tools for each decision-making type including productive ways to involve others in the process, create buy-in, and drive adoption once decisions have been made.
Improving your ability to make good decisions takes more than a few minutes and a few hundred words. It is a continuous process involving preparation, deliberate practice, feedback, refinement, and accountability. Knowledgeable guidance and outside perspective help speed your progress on the learning curve but no one else can do the work for you. It will take time but your business, your employees, and your customers will be better for it.
Let’s get to work!
