Effective Decision-Making and Follow-Through

April 6 Workshop Topic: Effective Decision-Making and Follow-Through, with Marcia Daszko, Marcia Daszko & Associates

Effective decision making is a challenge that people face everyday. For leaders of organizations, where decisions impact thousands of people, organizations and industries, the process of making effective decisions becomes critical. Some decisions impact life or death situations. Fundamentally, making decisions means making choices based on multiple variables that are both rational and emotional. Choices are made by assessing what is known and certain, what is at risk, and what is unknown with probable outcomes. Once decisions are made, they need to be implemented.

In this session, we explored what it takes to make more effective decisions and execute them as well as the obstacles to great decisions and how to remove them. We will discuss the challenges to executing decisions and how you can make changes tomorrow to achieve better decision making and execution.

To encourage growth based on continual transformative change:

• Have an aim/compelling purpose and communicate what it is, what it means to stakeholders, organization, industry, company, society.
• Ask strategic questions.
• Challenge any assumptions you might have.
• Leaders do not delegate accountability down the chain, but continually look for systemic issues/processes which are barriers to success (rather than blaming and faulting the parts - the people and things that support the system).
• People are responsible for the commitments they make.
• Four questions about the decision you're making: AIM: What are we trying to accomplish together? METHOD: By what method? CUSTOMERS: Who are we serving? MEASURES: How will we measure progress and success? Do not focus your measures on individuals who are only part of the system.
• Five key questions for managing data-driven decisions: What bugs you? What is repetitive about what bugs you? What can you measure about that? How will you know if a change is an improvement? What changes can you make that will result in an improvement?
• Stay away from the culture of accountability which is closely tied to blame and fear
• Adopt the BOHICA principle, which assumes that a minority are early-adopting Explorers (who embrace change readily) and Pioneers (solid adopters, more cautious before adopting change), the majority are Settlers (who take a wait and see stance), and the remaining are Cynics (unlikely to adopt change). The principle focuses on supporting the Explorers and Pioneers.
• The key to managing an organization/system is to look at data over time in context.

Marcia conducted a kaleidoscope exercise and asked the participants to brainstorm the answers on several questions (see below). From there we began to explore some fundamental theories about making more effective decisions and leading an organization's transformation.

What are the most important elements of making a good decision:

• Define the goal
• Get consensus on the goal/acceptance by stakeholders
• Having the right information to make educated decisions - Seeing consequences and impacts
• Get a second opinion from others before deciding
• Balance research and intuition/Reasonable risktaking
• Tools and resources
• Research and Timelines and Measurable results
• Timing of the decision

What are barriers to making good decisions:

• Resistance to change /not open to alternatives/Lack of agreement
• Politics/Power
• Fear/Lack of Trust/Procrastination
• Assumptions held
• Lack of follow-through/reward structure/not considering impact
• Lack of data/information/time/too many uncertainties/unknowability
• Lack of resources/ support
• Too much thinking
• What are some ideas for addressing different decision-making styles:
• Understand the perspectives of the stakeholders/Get buy-in
• Allowing innovation and creativity/Listening to different opinions
• Differentiating between what's essential and what's secondary
• Understanding big picture
• Having achievable goals/Considering future impact
• Using intuition
• Having good data
• What are the elements of Effective Follow-Through:
• Leadership/vision/mission
• Ownership and accountability
• Buy-In
• Milestones, Timeframes and other Measurable results
• Desire for success
• Remove obstacles of implementation
• Delegation

What are some barriers to Effective Follow-Through:

• Lack of Leadership/Unclear Communications/Conflicting priorities/Not setting expectations
• Lack of/incomplete buy-in
• No Accountability/Unclear milestones, goals/No Measurements/Unclear plan commitment vs. interest
• Time constraints/Poor Process/Lack of resources/Taking on too much/Placation disorder
• Fear: of uncertainty, failure, success
• Perfectionism and procrastination
• Sudden and unforeseen change
• Role Confusion/Bystander Syndrome
  

For more information:

• The New Economics for Industry, Government, Education by W.E. Deming
• The Goal, A Process of Ongoing Improvement by E. Goldratt
• The Improvement Guide: A Practical Approach to Improving Organizational Performance by G. Langley
• Understanding Variation: The Key to Managing Chaos by D. Wheeler
• Understanding Statistical Process Control by D. Wheeler
• Leadership On the Line: Staying Alive Through the Dangers of Leading by Ron Heifitz
• The Empowered Manager: Positive Political Skills at Work by Peter Block

Using Age to Your Advantage.

FountainBlue's March 22 Transitions event was on the topic of Using Age to Your Advantage.

Your age is one of your most powerful advantages in your job search ... if you have the right attitude and strategy to overcome the subtle and not so subtle age bias that exists in every interview.

For this FountainBlue Connections event, America's leading professional career coaches, Jean Erickson Walker, shares her very practical and expert advice on landing that great job you really want ... at any age. Jean Erickson provided us with a step-by-step guide on how to turn your age and experience into must-haves for any potential employer. We shared our stories and challenges around 'the age question' and participated in an engaging discussion. Below is advice for using age to your advantage:

• Have a positive attitude about your age, no more derogatory remarks
• Position yourself as a trustworthy, experienced, competent executive with integrity, values, and competence who will make life better for the senior executives at an organization
• Talk about the big picture, don't talk about the smaller details you did in executing a project
• Sell your relationship skills, not necessarily your tactical and technical knowledge
• Find a job which sounds like it would be fun, exciting, rich and engaging learning and growing experience where you can make a real contribution

Jean's Top Ten things to consider in using age to your advantage:

• Understand the new world of work
• Become CEO of You, Inc.
• Remember your age IS an issue
• Stop looking for jobs and start looking for work that needs doing
• Do a thorough self assessment
• Take a strategic view of job listings
• Learn the career search process
• Focus on outcomes, create a defining statement
• Pick your battles, sell your greatest asset, wisdom
• Bring your friends to the party

For more information:
Contact Jean and inquire about her coaching services
Order her book
Read her articles