According to Harvard Business Review, 72 percent of business leaders feel that bad decision-making occurs just as often as good decision-making, or are the “prevailing norm in their organizations.”
Harvard Business Review chalks this up to four key things: unfocused meetings, which can generate irrelevant status updates and further muddy the waters of an already messy governance system; confusion over who is in charge of what within an organization; overlapping priorities and tasks; and ineffective task forces that complete activities no one cares about.
However, there are three tactics businesses can take advantage of that can help their decision makers make, well, better decisions:
- Figure out who should make which decisions – Companies should determine the different levels at which decisions should be made, which will clarify people’s roles at the company. On top of that, companies should pinpoint decisions that might need “cross-functional collaboration,” and involve all different positions and minds to execute a task thoughtfully, and without disrupting everyone else’s workflow. “Your goal should be to make decision making across teams and departments as seamless and efficient as possible,” Harvard Business Review says.
- Connect governance groups – Most decisions made under a business are made based off of many minds, not just one. As a result, different groups need to be linked within a company. To do this, decision makers must determine meeting cadences to establish the flow for their business (such as scheduling near-term project meetings more frequently, but for shorter periods of time). Then, decision makers should attend those meetings equipped with information to share with the team, and leave with a “defined set of decisions and conclusions coming out.”
- Build quality control – Harvard Business Review says that groups function well when their effectiveness is monitored and tracked. That way, decision makers can gather feedback from their coworkers, and determine what within the company is and isn’t working. From there, they can alter their tactics to better support all employees that are involved, and pivot in a direction that will boost the success of the company.
Harvard Business Review says that following each of these tactics isn’t necessarily easy, but they are necessary. They help decision makers fix things within their company to make the business – and people – successful, instead of just putting a Band-Aid over bad decisions, which can be more costly in the end. “You have the power to improve decision-making processes that live within the areas you control,” Harvard Business Review says.
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