3D Approach of Successful Decision Making

What do you think is the best approach to take a decision? You might have many answer with a common thought that it need alignment among the parties involved in this. Yes it is true but again not really at all time. It sometime ignores conflict hence is actually the key towards taking an effective decision. Reason behind, in order to resolve a conflict the topic needs to pass through discussion, debate and finally requires way out to implement the decision successfully. Expressly in modern business environment when we all are running after to become digital in transforming our business for survival probes for new different approach. Traditional but still effective way of taking decision is alignment. It is      proven to be acceptable when the following requisites are adhered to by the decision makers:

1. The decision makers are generally possesses similar kind of thought, mind and experience thus can think align and appreciate the approach
2. The decision makers are working in similar kind of industries where has gone through identical kind of situations or challenges earlier
3. The decision makers are serving for the same company for long and have been driving change management together to transform
4. Finally, the decision maker’s understanding of Integrity. Doing the right things not doing things right.

Either of the above would support the approach of building alignment but if it is not than the question arises how to take an effective decision! 

Doing a study on a large corporate where the head of the organization, CEO aspired to transform the company to a digital company. His core focus was to optimize operation – Do less but effective, rationalize fixed costs – Utilize cost to generate revenue and transform to digital – Innovate to change with new mindset. One day he called on his front line leaders and expressed his thought. He found that there are few leaders who is more focused on challenges than looking forward to the opportunities. They were highly concerned if the approach fails than what would be the consequences however was also not providing any contingency plans. CEO was wondering why people are unable to see the huge future awaiting if we become successful and he is confident. CEO tried to align with his top management but it was not done. CEO being a close acquaintance of mine asked why things are not moving as per his expectation! 

After analyzing the above four criteria towards receiving a potential alignment, he found out that the first two are not rightly addressed to receive a unanimous alignment. It is revealed that all the decision makers don’t possesses the same thought, mind and experience caused by the differences of their different business orientation. And again the top management are not from the similar industries thus take time to appreciate each other’s view or even sometime don’t appreciate at all. As a result, the alignment about any initiative is difficult to confirm is such forum. Upon receiving few suggestions from me, the CEO agreed that there must be a much better way to help the organization grow by taking the right decisions. After number of discussions CEO felt that he wants to inject new thought, mind and experience into the top management and onboard new minds before sailing for the new destination – the digital company. Finally, he decided to increase the number of Management Committee members by re-structuring the overall company structure. He wanted to implement a new approach replacing the alignment method.

After taking such decision and implementation, he found things are changing cause there are differences of thoughts among the new and old members of the top management thus they are not aligned very often with any discussion. So, they asked for debate by putting their opinion forward and ask for further discussion to determine what is best for the organization in driving the aspiration of becoming Digital Organization. Before he did implement such approach, I discussed with him about the ‘3D’ approach of decision making that helped him to take such bold decision proficiently.

Discuss, Debate and Determine – The 3D approach not from dimensional perspective but from a three directional perspective before taking a decision specially in this modern digital era evidencing to be instrumental with organization driving change, the transformation. The special direction “Determine” makes the difference here towards formulating the decisions, how, let us discuss. 

Recently, due to huge development in the Technology front sometimes driving leaders confused about what to capture and what not. They are also biased with the development and progression of other company in similar or different industry through digitalization. Very often they push their digital or creative masterminds to imitate or follow or invent something new to remain in the league of transformation to digital. Now, it is of paramount importance to take the right decision through a structured approach. Before getting into the approach let us remember three Don’ts:

• Do not do alignment before discussing the opportunity and relevant challenges
• Do not do alignment before debating on the solutions or way forward
• Do not do alignment before determining you are convinced about the prospect 

Let us see how 3D approach can be a simple but highly effective decision making tool in this modern corporate environment disrupted by the innovation and invention of new technology:

Discuss – Modern organizational structure being less hierarchical offer empowerment to the line management. It allows people to grow and decide independently. However, leave behind a challenge of remaining in the silo. With the technological development where people and processes both are eliminating the communication gap and becoming transparent among each other during implementing actions. As a result we came to know how the implementation of any action is important for other division or work stream thus calls for a requirement of pre-discussion. 

Discussion can take place at various level starting from operational to strategic. Discussion will open eye about options and thus focuses on efficiency and optimized action. In this digital era of innovation being the driver of growth demands for discussion to debate on the initial options to finalize the way forward. It would save time, effort, cost and improve cost, profit and satisfaction. Resultantly, the right decision would be made.

Debate: Options of way forward are created from constructive discussion. Now it is the time to debate to find the best one for the organization. It is always better to have people with differences of opinion who though work for common goal have different perspective of looking at things. Therefore the alignment is based on debate and the forum get aligned when the logic behind any argument is acceptable by the majority. So, it is independent of their thought, mind and experience but based on rationales that received majority votes. So, the decision makers are convinced as of why they have chosen one option over others. Debating ensures the ownership of the participants in a decision making process hence people feel concerned as they already have been consulted in taking the final decision.  

Determine: This the most fascinating part of this approach of decision making process where the probable solutions or way forwards are being decided from the decision makers on their chosen decision. A combination of discuss and debate do happen in this phase to determine the way forward. Evidently it is found that many of the decisions turn into an unsuccessful decision due to the poor guidance on implementation. In this disruptive edge of innovation encountering such failure might bring high risk for the company to survive in the competitive market.

Moreover, decision is not good or bad; it is about how we implement and execute it makes the difference. In this digital era, precision plays a critical role and thus doing things in right way is of paramount importance. In doing so, fast and effective decision making powered by determined execution plan would ultimately lead the movement of financial parameter towards the positive direction. That is why, determining the approach of implementing the debated decision is the key to become successful with the decision made. 

The phase “Determine” makes the difference by ensuring operational excellence as outcome of a chosen decision. We plan and select the way of doing things but unfortunately often ignore guiding it through the implementation to achieve end result. Generally, we take decision through discussion; sometime coupled with debate however make a separate implementation plan to implement. In this 3D approach of successful decision making, the implementation way-forward would also be decided as a part of the decision making process thus securing the high probability of being successful. On the contrary, in this modern era of disruptive innovation and massive technology development, we can’t effort to fail in implementing a chosen decision that would badly impact our financial parameters. Thus effective decision making through 3D approach would support an organization to live up to their dreams of progression and prosperity.