How important is it to Identify Decision Bottlenecks?

The lack of clarity usually surrounds the context of the decision to be taken.

Either at the individual or corporate level, people have to make decisions, strategic or tactical, large or small even at daily basis. The business and the entire world become over-complex, hyper-competitive, unprecedented uncertain and ambiguous, what is the best scenario to make effective decisions, and how important is it to identify decision bottlenecks?

Do some systematic analysis in order to create more updated processes to smoothie the decision-making scenario: First -identification of tasks: understand the tasks and how they should be sequenced. And, how to leverage information associated with tasks optimally to make effective decisions. In order to identify decision bottlenecks, it might need to first categorize what kind of bottlenecks existing: the hard one like out of dated process, procedure, practice or soft one like culture, politics or decision styles, etc. The distinction between the decision quality and the outcome is important. If the decision-making scenario is well designed and executed, you have the highest probability of getting the best outcome in the state of knowledge accessible at the time of decision.

Communication and delegation bottleneck: Many times responsibilities or goals are communicated but the decision makers, in the case of conflicts, are not clearly identified and even when they are clear. There tend to be definitely perceivable choke points due to the inadequate delegation. It is important to identify the choke points when the responsibilities are being created and helps improve decision effectiveness via understanding the interrelationship of timing, group, and decision making. For communicating shared goals and co-making decisions, effective communicators are working to spread that throughout the organization in a diverse set of activities with mixed communication styles. The important steps should be taken to ensure that consistency in message delivery. There are layers of responsibilities on the employee. Sometimes it is very difficult on the employee to understand what they are expected to do due to cultural inertia or process ambiguity. Lack of clarity in decision makers or decision bottlenecks only adds to their frustration.

Decision bottlenecks are related to management systems and governance discipline: Decisions are necessary as a result of limited resources in time, knowledge, capital, and people. Decision making often lies in informal and closed group power centers within the organization. If you can understand the culture along with organizational chart, you would often know which lever to use to get the decision approval done. There is too often a tendency to take a one-size-fits-all approach to decision making, which includes a linear and static decision-making scenario that commits to a singular path. It obviously causes bottlenecks in making effective decisions in today's nonlinear and dynamic business environment. There are both internal elements and external elements in decision-making scenario, internal factors which may influence decision processes include such as the goals of the decision maker, decision situation, decision context, relevant information, and knowledge, as well as the organizational capabilities and resources. External factors which can influence strategic decision-making include technology factors, political and legal conditions, competition and consumer demands. Decision-making today needs to take a systematic approach, but via nonlinear, collective thinking, the mix of analytics and intuition, interdisciplinary knowledge and group contribution.

The lack of clarity usually surrounds the context of the decision to be taken. It is important to identify the bottleneck in decision-making scenario and choking point in decision-related communication or delegation. Decision making is situational, nothing is clear or concise. At the strategic level, therefore, the decision is not about good vs bad outcomes. It’s about how to leverage both internal and external factors, information and intuition in making sound judgment, minimizing risks, maximizing opportunities and taking actions to move the business and the world forward.

Posted in: CIO Debate,Decision Making