change management

Moral Choices

What makes a good decision maker – the three ingredients

What makes a good decision maker – the three ingredients

A 2004-2005 Teradata Report on Enterprise Decision-Making showed that over 70% of the respondents in their survey said that poor decision-making is a serious problem for their business. Other research in the UK conducted by the research agency YouGov for the Investors in People organization highlighted the negative impact that poor decision-making was having on employees. Other research in the area of organizational performance is consistent, with some suggesting that well over half of all decisions fail in some way. Specifically that the outcomes of the decision making process was poor – the ‘wrong’ decision had been taken or simply never implemented. It seems obvious that if decisions can fail for up to half of the time then organizations need to pay very close attention to the quality of their decisions and the people carrying out this role, but to-date, there is not much evidence that they are.

Decision-making is an age old problem that is being compounded today by increasing knowledge, population, complexity, speed and change. The number of decisions being made is increasing as is the pace of change and the number of people in an organization involved in the thousands of day-to-day decisions, from a new product launch to a decision on a new hire that have to be made. Decision-making is an essential requirement of management especially at the senior level and is perhaps the true core competence of leaders … ‘our society has largely neglected the fact that sound judgment and decision making are the crux of many professions’ (Smith et al 2004). The very best leaders appear able to make crucial decisions effortlessly ‘standing on their feet’ drawing on unseen resources of domain knowledge and experience that set them apart from the crowd. How effective managers and staff are in general at making good decisions is a moot point and understanding the process of high performance decision making is becoming critical to organizational success.

Problem-solving and decision-making are closely linked as each requires creativity in identifying, developing then evaluating options from which a course of action needs to be chosen. A problem always denotes that there are options to be chosen from – if there is a known solution then this is a puzzle not a problem. A decision is basically a problem solving process under uncertainty, so the steps or stages of decision making are more or less the same as those for problem solving. There are many n-step problem solving routines to guide decision making but at the heart of the decision making problem are the following three main aspects: how the problem is seen, how alternatives are generated, and how the decision is actioned.

The three key aspects of high level decision making:

  • Proactive cognition is a feature of people who actively seek to change the environment and not passively react to it. People strong in this feature scan for opportunities in the world preferring to make choices rather than follow procedures and create novel options by seeing problems differently rather than considering just the obvious.
  • Deciding is about making the decision, weighing and chewing over the options and above all considering the risk of alternatives. People who are high in this ability often draw on extensive domain knowledge and experience enabling them to make mental short cuts and come to a decision apparently quickly hiding the deep processes really going on.
  • Finally Action Control – making and enacting the choice. The effective planning and scheduling of actions to deliver the decision are examples of behavior of people who are able to ensure that decisions are not postponed, procrastination is avoided and decisions are implemented without delay.

A good decision is the direct result of clear criteria, the scope of the choice to be made together with the risk of each alternative – then taking action. From this perspective a good decision is the outcome of a process of optimally achieving a given objective from a certain starting point. A good decision is a logical one (or at least defensible and traceable) based on the available knowledge to hand that answers a particular organizational problem. Measuring whether or not decision making is good or bad needs to assess both the process and the outcome, the effectiveness and the quality of the decision making, as these are two quite distinct things. Effectiveness is how well the process of decision making is managed and how learning takes place – what caused a poor outcome to occur is fed back into the process. Output quality is to some extent comes well after the decision has been taken and is a reflection whether the right choice was made as well as on how well the choice was placed into action and implemented. There are many examples, particularly in the political world, where there is an assumption that the decision is the same as the implementation. A good decision making process therefore integrates the choice with the implementation and looks at the outcome to ensure learning takes place.

It is this latter point that completes the circle – it is a balanced decision making process that seems to be about right. Consciously attending to all three areas of the decision making process is key. The seeking of ways to control and act on the world, weighing up options carefully thinking about the choice then ensuring implementation takes place are the three key facets of effective decision making and features of high performers. When this balanced process is in place in more organizations perhaps then can the abysmal performance we currently have in this core area be improved.

Royston

How to do a Force Field Analysis – a practical guide

How to do a Force Field Analysis

Purpose of Tool

It can be used to identify those forces that both help and hinder the solution to an issue or problem so that the positives can be reinforced and/or the negatives eliminated or reduced. It can also be useful as a way of thinking about a difficult negotiation, or interpersonal relationship such as getting your daughter to do her homework. It is based on field theory which suggests that a current situation in an organization is held in quasi stability by a set of restraining and promoting forces that are at balance. By changing these forces we can change the state of the system and affect change.

Tip: In general it is often the case that senior managers wish to strengthen the promoting forces (the shout louder approach) but evidence from years of use show that the most effective way of using a force field analysis is in minimizing or eliminating the restraining forces first before considering strengthening the promoting ones.

Why use Force Field Analysis

* Easily understood and simple to use
* Presents the positive and negative side of a situation so that they can be easily compared
* Forces people to think together about all the aspects of making the desired change a permanent one by ‘locking in’ those aspects that promote stability.
* Encourages discussion and agreement on the relative priority of factors on both sides of the ‘balance sheet’ – this discussion and searching for consensus is an important benefit of the approach
* Can stimulate an honest reflection on the real underlying roots of a problem and its solution

When to use

Anytime really when you or your team faces a problem or where you need to move things along and understand what is preventing progress.

How to use

1. Establish the goal or desired situation and write it at the top of a sheet of flip chart.
2. Draw a line across the centre of the page representing the situation to be moved.
3. Along the top draw arrows representing the restraining or ‘pushing down’ hindering forces preventing progress.
4. Along the bottom draw arrows representing the motivating or ‘pushing up’ helping forces.
5. Rate the relative strength of these forces by making the arrows larger for those forces you consider more important.
6. The breakdown of the forces can then be used to explore how to reduce the number or strength of the restraining forces then increase or strengthen the helping or motivating forces.
7. Write down the actions and create and action plan to make the changes to the forces.

Skills Required

There is no special training for this tool – just good listening skills and the ability to capture comments and help the group to distill them into an action plan that minimizes/removes the negative forces and maximizes the positive forces. Force Field Analysis is best run by someone who has been involved in the topic under discussion or is familiar with the subject area.

Materials required

A flip chart and pens are required. You can also use ‘post-it’ notes instead of arrows and use a brainstorming technique such as a nominal group to derive a comprehensive list of forces before as a group posting them to a main board for discussion.

Conclusion

This tool has a long history and still maintains its utility despite its apparent simplicity. Use it when your team is blocked in some way or you need to see the wider picture in a change programme. It is an essential tool in the armoury of a consultant and despite its simplicity is a profound way of looking at an organisation.

Royston

force

The creation of an effective internal website

How to set up an effective internal website?

Self-service take-up

A lot of money is invested by companies on implementing internal web sites, developing HR for the intranet to facilitate employee and management ‘self-service’. The aim is often to increase employee understanding of company goals and procedures and reduce workload on key personnel, enabling these personnel to become more strategic. Furthermore intranets can provide a greater degree of flexibility for individuals and groups as well as assist in the creation of a ‘learning organization’. However, despite the potential benefits to both the individual and the organization, utilization of these systems is generally low. So how can we get employees motivated to use self-service websites?

7 Best Practice Tips:

  1. Make sure each business area or department on the intranet are involved in the design, implementation and evolution of their web sections. Better still, ensure they plan and define their expectations and use of the web to ensure goal attainment. The system is far more likely to be effective if it is business needs driven.
  2. Ensure the end users are monitored and asked for feedback on the web sections and any changes – don’t forget though if you ask for feedback use it!
  3. Enthusiastic support from the very top is essential you need you people to think; ‘if the boss feels it is important then perhaps so should I’.
  4. All information on the web must be important, relevant to users jobs, and benefit them in their work. If you can include aspects of work that they must use or use because it is simpler (such as forms of ‘self-service’ vacation application or time recording), it will help increase usage.
  5. A searchable, easy to navigate, repository of information is essential – must also be up to date and current. Whilst care should be taken not to overload people with too much information, research shows staff can become more productive if they do have easy access on the intranet to a range of company documentation.
  6. Do ensure people are given recognition for any work published or pages developed on the web. This not only increases motivation but ensures changes can be communicated to the right person – which will increase accuracy and reliability.
  7. Technically the system must be fast, reliable, and easy to use. If staffs have to invest time finding information and/or struggle with the system, they will give up. There are detailed best practice guidelines for the technical development of websites available, which include use of color, format and content presentation. Which include use of color, format and content presentation, identifying new items, ensuring no broken links, and reducing the number of clicks/ease of navigation – Get a guide and stick to it

3 things to Avoid:

  1. Do not leave it all to the IT department to organize – it is usually a disaster. They can only take responsibility for the technical aspects, not motivating individuals or selling business practices. The strategic effectiveness of intranets will be badly affected if content and structure is left solely to IT.
  2. Do not assume that staff will start to use it in time, or after a short initial training course. They will need good reasons for using the system so be patient.
  3. Do not use as a general data repository or an uncontrolled mass-communication device. People suffering from information overload actually reduce the time and effort spent on the system and can miss the information that is valuable.

Developing these areas of best practice should enable your organization to be effective and ensure investment in intranets is not wasted.

So how is your internal intranet strategy going?

Stephanie