We all make a lot of decisions. But, if you’re like me, you never had any training on how to make decisions. Most schools teach the scientific method, which is necessary, but insufficient for the majority of our decisions. Turns out Decision Science is a thing.
Sounds buzzwordy, doesn't it? Turns out, The Decision Sciences Institute recently celebrated its 50th-anniversary last year and this field has been around, in different flavors, for a while! In fact, Decision Support Systems were all the rage in the 70s and 80s.
Back then, there was an explosion of executive information systems, group decision support systems, and clinical decision supports hitting the medical industry, forestry management, air traffic control, supply chain, etc.
Lately, thanks to folks like Daniel Kahneman, Dan Ariely, and the Heath brothers we're having a resurgence in the popularity decision making. If you haven’t read any of these books - here’s the punchline - people aren’t great at making decisions.
The good news, most industries have already figured this out and they've developed models or heuristics for "the what" or "the how" of executional work. They've standardized around loops because work is cyclical and honestly, they're more fun to create than checklists.
All this focus on how to do things right often ignores the more important question, are we doing the right things? This is the heart of making decisions (and leadership, but that's for another post)!
As mentioned above, we're all overconfident, ego-driven, self-justification animals, which means we approach decisions ready to flex the facts to match our opinions. So, what can you create to make sure you're doing the right things?
Whatever system you create should force you to grapple with tradeoffs, articulate what success looks like, mandate revisiting success metrics in the future, and be understood by all stakeholders. Depending on your level of neuroticism attention to detail here are a few tactics for inspiration…
A 2x2 table, or a contingency table, is the building block of MBAs and management consulting. As our friends at BCG would say, "A 2x2 matrix is an elegant instrument to effectively communicate insights...and get that afterwork." This model enforces binary thinking (not great), but it helps align stakeholders on the big picture (really great).
Flowcharts will make you a big hit at parties, but can slow down the tempo of decisions. If you feel like you can predict all the outcomes, this is the model for you!
To do decision trees right, with all the fun Bayesian modeling, requires a lot of data, spreadsheets, and some math-letes on your team. However, informal decision trees can be excellent tools for running the simulation and working through possible outcomes.
Premortems are similar to decision trees, but with a bias to action. Ask if X goes well, why? If X doesn’t go well, why? Postmortems are after-action reports to pause, reflect, and make changes. Doing either of these exercises with a red team, also known as a contrarian in the room will supercharge results.
Perhaps my favorite tactic I’ve stolen from Warren Buffett
Durable organizations do more than just teach decision making, they embed it into their DNA. They build decision capacity from the C Suite to the front line worker. Bezos has his 14 Leadership Principles and Dalio has his Principles. Pick up any of the thousands of business books and you'll find plenty of sneaky frameworks where leaders embedded decision making support into their companies operating systems.
Here's the thing. It doesn't matter how shiny or cool your decision support tooling is, if there's inconsistent understanding across the organization on how decisions are made, your organization is leaking. Leaking productivity, leaking performance, and leaking talent.