Decision-making is central to all organisational activities and has to be done with precision and clarity. In an area where we are considered to be SMEs and where the society relies on us to provide that expertise to assist with decision-making, it’s important that we contextualise our knowledge within the wider Society and business needs and parameters.
I’ve shared in previous blogs about the need to balance autonomy with accountability. It is within that accountability that we must ensure we provide the context to ensure the decisions we are making are the most appropriate for the society – not to be purist, but to be contextual optimisers.
“If content is king, then context is god” – Gary Vaynerchuk
For example – there are roles that use their technical knowledge to make technical decisions – tools to use, designs to apply and so on. They are asked to do so because of their expertise, but they must also ensure that the recommendation or decision factors into it other contexts like corporate strategy, risk appetite, commercial terms and conditions, finance constraints, skillsets available within the team – the right technical answer may not be the optimal technical solution.
The same applies to those that make risk, delivery, security, operational, finance or hiring decisions. They all have to take into account each others points of view and needs.
We create teams that bring all these aspects together, in order to enable us to collaborate and provide our expertise to the final decision-maker so that they can add all the information together, and assess which recommendation/solution to go with.
It is therefore on each of us to ensure we are aware of the context within which we are being asked to make a recommendation or decision and to ensure we are informed with all the pertinent information to enable us to make that call. This doesn’t mean we are beholden to the wants and needs of all other teams, but we do need to collaborate and compromise to meet as many as possible and be conscious and articulate the compromises we have made. This is essential as if the context changes, we can easily assess if that alters the decision.
“We are living in a world where right context is more important that right content”
This isn’t easy as within many organisations, aspects of the context of the business will always be changing, so I wanted to provide some support and insight.
Cynefin Framework
A framework I like for this is called Cynefin (pronounced ku-nev-in, is a Welsh word that signifies the multiple factors in our environment, our culture and our personal history that influence us in ways we can never fully know.)
The Cynefin framework sorts issues into five contexts defined by the nature of the relationship between cause and effect.
Four of these - simple, complicated, complex, and chaotic - require us to diagnose situations and to act in contextually appropriate ways.
The fifth - disorder - applies when it is unclear which of the other four contexts is predominant.
Simple Contexts - sense, categorize, and respond - The Domain of Best Practice
Decision making here is straightforward. There is clarity from all the areas you have to factor it, so you are able to look at the facts, categorise them based on previous experience, and respond according to established best practice.
“Without context words and actions have no meaning at all” – Gregory Bateson
Complicated Contexts - sense, analyse, and respond - The Domain of Good Practice
Complicated systems are just more intricate simple systems - they have many more parts, but there is still a clear link between the asks of the various factors to include. It is possible to predict how these parts will interact together, but we still need to access the experts for each part, to provide them with input for them to analyse and give back greater clarity on their boundaries. We can then face into the potentially conflicting contexts and consciously make the most appropriate recommendation/ decision.
“For me context is the key – from that comes the understanding of everything” – Kenneth Noland
Complex Contexts - probe, sense, and respond - The Domain of Emergent Practice
In simple and complicated contexts it is possible to decide how to respond merely by observing the participating areas - because these are essentially static.
Complex Contexts however are dynamic and can only be understood by interacting with each of them in some way and noticing the impact this has. In these emergent collaborations we need to find ways to allow the path forward to reveal itself by experimenting, prototyping and exploring - thus we must first probe, then sense, then respond.
“Priority is a function of context” – Stephen Covey
Chaotic Contexts - act, sense, and respond - The Domain of Novel Practice
In Chaotic contexts no patterns or structure exists and there is no apparent link. Here our job is to impose order and transform the situation from chaos back to complexity. Rudy Giuliani demonstrated exceptional effectiveness in dealing with this context when, on 9/11, he dealt with the extreme chaos unleashed on New York by imposing directives and taking action to restore order.
Some may call this Command and Control, where the parties have not been able to find a solution that ticks enough boxes, so an imperative is given that moves the direction forward and allows the experimenting of the complex context to commence to add more data into the discussions.
It is worth noting that chaos is not all bad - the chaotic domain is also the best place to impel innovation as people can be more open to dramatically changing their habitual ways of thinking and acting than in the other contexts. Indeed, creating limited chaos and the moment you encounter a crisis may actually result in rapid innovation.
If you can think back to the video I shared in a previous blog about how Airbnb responded to the pandemic – the chaos created innovation there.
“Without context, a piece of information is just a dot. It floats in your brain with a lot of other dots and doesn’t mean a damn thing. Knowledge is information-in-context… Connect the dots” - Michael Ventura
So when we are faced with a decision, if we can decide which domain we are within, then we can better assess who we need to get input from and how much input we need – in order words we need to consider the dimensions we have to factor into our decisions.
We need to be making the decision that is best for the organisation – that makes the best use of members money, delivers the best solution to support our strategic intent and delivers the best implementation to meet our vision, purpose and consumers needs – no mean feat, we but we’re the experts and that is what we are hired and rewarded for doing
Decision-Making Dimensions
There are many dimensions to decision making, but some that are particularly relevant include:
Proximity and urgency: How “proximate” is the issue being discussed? Do we have lots of time to analyse? Do we need to make a decision promptly? What’s the cost or risk of delaying? Do we give up an option by delaying?
Upside vs downside: What are the consequences of getting the decision “right” or “wrong”? Do these consequences impact all stakeholders equally, or are certain groups advantaged and disadvantaged? Are those stakeholders involved? Can they be?
Default: What happens if we don’t make a decision in time? Who is affected or impacted? What are the consequences of inaction?
Authority: Who can make the decision? Who is accountable for the effects? If these are different people, are they both involved?
Values: What do different stakeholders value? What are their perspectives? Do we know what “success” looks like for them?
Stakeholder participation: To what extent can we, or would we like to, get wider participation in the decision making process? Are we “engaging”, “consulting”, “imposing”, or something else? Does the approach fit the context?
Size and predictability: What is the size of the decision, risks, or benefits? Is it “routine” and predictable, or new and novel?
There will be many other considerations too, depending on context, and there’s certainly no one “definitive” list. The real key to making contextually relevant decisions is to have open discussions about how decisions ought to be made, and who should be involved. Prompts such as those listed above can be useful to cultivate these discussions. This may be overkill for smaller or more routine decisions, but when it comes to organisational change it is crucial.
Who’d want to be in a decision-making position when you look at it like this?
It’s a big deal and we have to respect the importance and impacts of the decisions we are making, and ensure we are setting ourselves up for success. We need to nurture the relationships needed to enable as many decisions as possible to be the application of best practice because the contexts are simple and transparent to apply. This investment in relationships and collaboration mean that when a complicated or complex context does arise, we are all prepared to get around the table, to share, to listen and to seek the best outcome for the whole not the parts.
Until next week….
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