More, Better Decisions

SCIO Decision Intelligence Framework

I often use the phrase “more, better decisions” because I’ve come to believe that organizational decision-making is the key to success toward operational excellence. My word choice drive my marketing people crazy, and Grammarly, too. That’s okay by me — I think it fits.

More, better decisions are the objective because we want better results; they go hand in hand. We don’t expect to be perfect, we can’t be. We just need to be better at our decisions to deploy our vast and scarce resources to higher-value activities than we have been to get a better result.

There are two dimensions at play here.

First is the decision quality. Did we have the right team of problem-solvers, decision-makers and implementors? Did we choose an appropriate frame to see the problem? Did we choose creative alternatives? Did we choose an appropriate model to evaluate the solution? Did we integrate the best available knowledge, information, data, and experience? Did we consider clear values and acceptable tradeoffs? Did we apply sound reasoning and judgment? Did we commit the organization to action and follow through? Did we measure the value delivered in the expected timeframe? These are the elements of a quality decision. It boils down to this: Did we make the best decision possible applying appropriate rigour (minimum effective dose) given the decision's complexity and impact?

The second dimension is the outcome. Of course, we want a good outcome, but the outcome is indeterminable at the time of the decision. The outcome is variable because we always make decisions in the face of complexity, uncertainty and constraint. Was the outcome everything we expected? Did we influence the value drivers in the amounts we predicted? How did we measure our impacts on financial, safety, environmental, customer service, reputation and social governance? Can we distinguish changes from this decision from other activities?

We must acknowledge that a good decision can have a good or bad outcome. We strive for good decisions and good outcomes, but we must expect and accept some bad outcomes and seek to minimize those over time.

A bad decision, meaning poor quality, can have a bad or a good outcome. It may be obvious we shouldn’t be satisfied with a bad decision and bad outcome, yet we don’t always call these out. On the flip side, we also shouldn’t be satisfied with good outcomes stemming from poor decision quality, and these situations are more difficult to identify.

If we want to employ a practical and effective decision-making framework that moves the dials on organizational performance, we have to create a business environment where we seek good decision quality and good outcomes but also where it is acceptable to have quality decisions and occasionally bad outcomes, and where it is unacceptable to have poor decisions regardless of the outcomes.

In the words of my colleague Marc Laplante, “Organizations shouldn’t penalize people for making a good decision with a poor outcome, but rather for allowing circumstances to decide for them.”

The objective in more, good decisions is we want more “good decisions, good outcomes” and fewer of the rest. To achieve this, we must track and learn from our decisions. This is how we develop a track record enabling individuals and the collective organization to better its decision-making capability. The Decision Intelligence Framework helps us do this.

Book a Decision Intelligence Framework demo with SCIO.