Schlagwort-Archive: Components

Decision-making reloaded

Incredibly, we make 20,000 decisions a day. With sixteen hours that we spend every day awake, these are about 20 decisions per minute. In the last minute, you may have decided to:

  • open your IT device,
  • choose between email and social media,
  • prefer one link over another when skimming,
  • prefer the title Decision reloaded to a Forbes List 2021,
  • open this post
  • skip the first paragraph,
  • look at the picture,
  • go back to the beginning of the post,
  • believe or not that we make 20,000 decisions a day,
  • read on with this assumption,
  • believe that these are 20 decisions per minute,
  • continue reading on this basis for the time being,
  • ignore up the ringing phone,
  • take a look at the rest of the article,
  • continue reading based on the remarkable keywords,
  • delay your previous activity,
  • read on despite this list,
  • understand that decisions are an essential part for you, even if not 20 times a minute,
  • use the topic for yourself,
  • recognize that 20 decisions have taken place in the last minute.

You have likely thought about similar considerations in the past minute – mostly unconsciously. With such a frequent activity, it makes sense to refresh our understanding of decision-making.

However, the emphasis of this post is not on the small decisions that we continually make unconsciously, but we turn to the big ones that have far-reaching effects and are made consciously. For this, we look at the time span and the components of a decision, the alternatives, the lasting of the impact, and the responsible parties.

  • Deciding – an act or rather a process?
    The blow of the hammer of a judge or auctioneer is the moment when a decision is concluded. Through this official act of an authorized person, a decision enters into force, or a final choice is made. The decision-making process needs time to work out the components, weigh them against each other, establish them with a binding act and evaluate the effects afterward.
    Depending on the leadership style, (de)centralized top-down vs. bottom-up, leaders satisfy their mindset. The process-oriented decisions, which should turn those affected into participants and make implementation more likely, are the more viable ones.
  • The moment of decision
    The “right” moment is a matter of belief. There are the reactive leaders, who make decisions as late as possible, if at all – There is nothing left but to rectify the situation. Then there are the active ones who roll up their sleeves and solve a difficulty directly – Where is the problem? What can we do? We do it like this. Then there are the pro-actives who try to foresee difficulties with a far-reaching radar and make preventive decisions – We investigate these developments and make sure that nothing unforeseen happens. And eventually, the passive decision-makers (what an oxymoron), who follow the illusion that by avoiding a decision, they would not decide – We agreed after lengthy negotiations that we should definitely think about when we could meet to discuss how to proceed.
    There is no one right moment to decide what must/should/could be determined. The late decision has more information, but follow-up problems are already happening. A timely decision is the last chance to prevent the consequences. The proactive ones lack information and may deal with obstacles that never occur. The important thing is that a decision is made at all.
  • Components of a decision
    Reducing a decision to one act does not meet its complexity. It is the interplay of several aspects that together constitute a decision. It starts with the triggers that determine the pressure to decide – e.g., deadlines, imminent danger, stakeholder demands. Often several goals have to be reconciled with each other. The search for solutions becomes more difficult due to a lack of information about the past, present, and future. Since there are always many options to choose from, at least three should be worked out. To avoid surprises and unintended consequences, the possible impacts must be anticipated, e.g., through appropriate scenarios in which the alternatives are “tested”. To clarify the role of the decision-makers, they need outlined tasks, competencies, in the sense of agency, and a firmly outlined responsibility that defines the consequences for the decision-makers.
    These components take time, i.e., the decision-making process.
  • Decision alternatives
    The number and the spread of options are an essential aspect of decision-making. Let us consider inevitable decisions where we believe we have no choice, although there is always a choice between one action or no action. This means that we always have at least two alternatives – even if doing nothing is always the worse alternative.
    Experienced executives know that there are always at least three options to take full advantage of the available space.
  • Half-life of decisions
    Let us imagine we would be standing on a balcony. A conflagration is blazing in the flat beside us. We can hold out on the balcony for fear of jumping – and burn to death. Or we can jump down from the second floor – in the worst case, we break our necks. Less decisive people will say it does not matter what they choose. However, there is a higher probability of survival in the jump. In any case, the NECESSARY decision has an infinite half-life. You either immediately end up in eternal rest or continue to live as if nothing had happened. With all other decisions that have no final consequences, you can always revise your decision afterward.
    The need for action increases according to the importance and the urgency. The more people affected, the greater the reach, the more constant the consequences, and the greater the costs, the better you have to prepare and evaluate the decisions.
  • Who decides?
    A decision has already been preceded by another significant one – Who decides? The choice of who decides is the responsibility of the orderers – e.g., a steering committee or the recipients. And before that, the question arises, who chooses this circle. And so on. Those assigned, who do not want to be burdened with responsibility, call for public decision-making and thus delegate responsibility and consequences to the majority. According to the Highlander principle (There can only be one), however, one specific person should decide, otherwise, there is no clear accountability. Nobody decides when several decide. In this case, everyone is collectively to blame, and thus no one.
    The unambiguous assignment of one person increases the quality of a decision.

Bottom line: Until now, the personal income also depended on decision-making because decision-makers were placed at management levels. In the course of Theory Y, agility, and servant leadership, the detached leaders become obsolete. They are replaced by the employees on-site. However, this does not change the decision-making process, the choice of the moment, the building blocks, the need for alternatives, the half-life, and the clear mandate despite decision-makers at all levels. Besides the doing, decision-making is the most crucial element in business and the last resort for the leaders, who are becoming obsolete with the current collaboration models.

The matter as such

The description of actions, behaviors, interactions, processes, systems and the like seems at first glance simple – select, observe, describe, interpret, communicate.

  • The objective should be clearly described so that the observations monitor the same thing.
  • The elements of the observation should be entirely collected so that comparability is guaranteed.
  • All observations should be described in a common language to avoid ambiguities from the outset.
  • Interpretation should be based on all observations, i.e. after all data is available.
  • Results should be published in the language of the target group, i.e. free of technical jargon.

This sequence and the common understanding of the matter as such must be communicated to all parties involved – especially the observers need beforehand appropriate training.

Individuals, groups, roles, processes, temporal, geographical and virtual spaces, media, and all other interesting objects are watched. In any case, the following aspects have to be considered.

  • The components of the matter as such
    On the one hand the set of target objects should be clearly described – who, how many, from where, etc. In addition, the components have some descriptive elements that should be described consistently to ensure comparability. It is this combination of elements that allows a useful observation.
    For example, persons have a name, a place of residence, certain interests; groups are named and need a list of group members and other characteristics to distinguish them; processes consist of individual steps that together provide a service.
  • The relationships of the matter as such
    The components are in unidirectional or mutual relations with each other – human, social, economic, technical, legal, religious, or other connections. They decisively expand the findings of observation.
    The components relate by communicating, doing business or pursuing other joint interests. Processes deliver results which, when interacting, sum up to the overall performance of the whole. The parts of a machine enable them to achieve a certain performance.
  • The changes of the matter as such
    Through the relationships of the components the conditions are in constant flux (Panta rhei). These changes are an essential characteristic of the matter as such. Thereby the components and relationships change more or less.
    People continue to develop, change the center of their lives, form new groups over time and work in various jobs. A machine mainly retains its structure, apart from the consumables and wear. From these changes, statements about the viability of the whole can be deduced. If no changes take place, the system is most likely dead.
  • The triggers of the changes
    To better understand the changes, the causes should be understood. What causes the changes? Where do the triggers come from? Through which relationships do the triggers reach the different components?
    The many causes that influence human development, or affect processes or put a strain on machines, offer starting points for creating desired outcomes or avoiding undesired consequences. The triggers are entry points for influencing the whole.
  • The occurrences of the matter as such
    The individual changes and triggers are difficult to oversee. For this reason, we bundle them into incidents that consist of a collection of components, relationships, changes and triggers. A general classification is for example the always existing life cycle – becoming, maturing, exploiting, vanishing.
    Occurrences not only comprise the documented contents, but also generate further insights in the observers’ minds, which result from their experiences – education, the founding of a family, the annual financial statement of the company, the maintenance of a machine. Eventually they become a matter as such.
  • The meaning of the matter as such
    The many aspects of the matter as such result in meaning for us and for others – What influences are sent from here? What is the overall purpose? What is the importance of the matter as such for different persons and groups?
    The totality of all matters as such result in the reality that surrounds us – the society, the economy, the culture and their interactions. Depending on the task at hand, we look at them at different levels in order to find leverage points.

Bottom line: The matter as such is the central element in the task fulfilment. This can be a matter of individual persons, groups or abstract systems that require a specific solution. In any case, it is better to consider the above aspects: the components, relationships, changes, triggers, occurrences, and above all the resulting meaning. The observation that cannot answer the above questions should always be examined critically, as the insights result from the interaction of many aspects – especially the above points of the matter as such.