Decision making in your organization: Cutting through the clutter
At the root of any good decision is categorizing what kind of decision needs to be made, by whom, and how quickly.

https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/organization/our-insights/decision-making-in-your-organization-cutting-through-the-clutter

Great discussion on the process of decision making. Go to the site for a full discussion including a podcast

The decision-making process should be a choice, where you have a level of commitment that drives action. If the commitment and action isn’t there, then something’s wrong in the decision process, itself…. 

…. The other thing that we’ve observed is some best practices around decision making are situational. For some types of decisions, those best practices work brilliantly, and for other types of decisions, they’re terrible. If you don’t apply the right best practices in the right way at the right time, you can get things that don’t work. It’s not enough to say, “I have experience, and I know what makes a good decision.” You have to say, “What am I optimizing for?” With decisions that can be quickly undone, you should take a lot more risk in making a wrong decision, because you can undo it. Decisions where the stakes are high and you can’t undo them need to be a lot more thoughtful and carefully planned 

.... we’ve found that it’s helpful to talk about four different kinds of decisions. 

One is your classic big-bet decision, where you’re making a decision that’s going to have enormous implications for the company. It’s often not easy to undo it. It might be an acquisition or a merger. It might be a major capital investment. That’s the first type. 

The second type is a decision that isn’t actually a single decision. We call it a cross-organizational or a cross-functional decision, where many different parts of the organization are involved and there are lots of little decisions that accumulate to a larger decision. A good example of this might be something like pricing or decisions in a supply chain. 

The third type of decision is one that can easily be delegated to a particular role—somebody who has enough knowledge to make a good decision, may interact with other people to get feedback and perspective on making the decision—but does not need to be made in a committee and does not need to be drawn out. It does not need a carefully mapped decision process. 

 There is a fourth type, ad hoc decisions, which are decisions that are infrequent and reasonably small and contained, where you don’t try to figure it out or map it out ahead of time. You just say, well there’s a bunch of stuff that might bubble up, and we’ll deal with it as it comes up. We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.

 

Starting a Transformation? Don’t Change Everything!

Elizabeth Doty

https://www.strategy-business.com/blog/Starting-a-Transformation-Dont-Change-Everything?gko=302aa&utm_source=itw&utm_medium=20180118&utm_campaign=resp

Great perspective when faced with having to change your organization to enhance performance.

As organizations of all types — in both the public and private sectors — strive to be more agile, they reorganize more often. Executives are asked to take on new teams, merge related teams, or pivot to a new set of priorities. Such challenges can be exciting: As a leader, your mind may be buzzing with ideas, questions, and possible solutions. The pressure is on, and you are eager to put “points on the board.” 

Yet, for your team, a reorganization may involve a reset as much as a new direction. When things are in flux, people naturally tend to slow down on special initiatives — they don’t want to risk marching in the wrong direction. As new players are assigned, processes can easily become muddled, handoffs dropped, and best practices forgotten. Individuals are not yet familiar with one another’s quirks and talents, and may be feeling the loss of their former teammates. 

Moreover, even after you set the direction and clarify roles, your team may still hesitate until they trust that new commitments will persist over time..,. 

 
….The trick is to recognize that your team is already in motion. In one form or another, initiatives are under way, ideas are being discussed, processes are in place, and relationships have developed. Even if your charter is to radically change course, chances are there is much that you can repurpose or redirect. By taking the time to uncover what is happening on the ground now and affirming explicitly what you want to continue, stop, or start anew, you can dramatically reduce the reset effect. To put this in practice, consider holding three types of conversation early on in your tenure with a new team. 

1. The “team story line” conversation. Although it is very tempting to focus only on the future, take some time to learn about your new team’s journey. Ask them: What have been your priorities and goals over the past year? What have you accomplished? What have been the biggest breakthroughs? Where are you focused now?...  

2. The “new challenge” conversation. This is where you share the larger opportunity or need the team is being asked to address. Get creative, and try to bring this new challenge to life as vividly and concretely as possible, building on what your team already knows and understands…..  

3. The “realign the work” conversation. Now, with shared understanding of direction, you and your new team can outline what you need to change in practice. Review your goals, roles, processes, team commitments, and the dashboard of measurements you use to track progress. Then, determine together what you need to continue, stop, or start to deliver. … 

…..As satisfying as it is to generate your own ideas, you and your team will get to results most quickly by tapping into efforts already under way wherever possible. You may be surprised by how flexible your team is if the new focus is clearly articulated in ways that directly relate to their prior goals. For their part, team members can help new leaders by highlighting work they can leverage. For example, the senior director above eventually invited the new governor to review the current initiatives and the impact they were having, then asked his input on 

How Leaders Can Improve Their Thinking Agility

https://www.strategy-business.com/blog/How-Leaders-Can-Improve-Their-Thinking-Agility

Jesse Sostrin is a director at PwC’s U.S. Leadership Coaching Center of Excellence.

Interesting insights

Leaders operate with near-constant deficits of time, energy, resources, and focus, which keeps them locked in a perpetual state of catch-up. This reality erodes quality contemplation. Although there are strategies to help you react to the urgencies of the day without sacrificing time to reflect, the value and impact of your thoughts are not simply a measure of minutes. Rather, they can be measured by the thinking agility you apply to changing priorities and circumstances. 

More specifically, your capacity to reflect dynamically amid the constantly shifting work landscape is what counts most. The strongest lever you, as a leader, have over how you manage your people, projects, and priorities is your own thinking. Yet worry about being able to equip a new generation of leaders with this ability is keeping a majority of the world’s CEOs up at night… 

…Leaders, you can increase your thinking agility — and develop these related competencies — by leveraging the following three strategies. 

Know your thinking sweet spot. The first step is to develop greater awareness of your thinking tendencies…. 

Uncover your thinking gaps. Knowing your thinking sweet spot is crucial because we instinctively develop habits and patterns of behavior around them. These well-worn patterns may be the cause of our success, but as our roles evolve and the challenges we face shift, leaders need to branch out beyond the sweet spot and develop broader thinking skills. Filling in these thinking gaps by exploring the domains you tend to avoid will allow you to more easily collaborate with and influence people. 

As situations change, let your thinking change too. Not all thinking is created equal, which is good because not every task requires the same response. Once you know your thinking sweet spot, and your gaps, you can begin to cultivate thinking diversity by considering the ideal response in a variety of situationsnking Sweet Spot