Much has been said about the failures of the ANC Government in South Africa and for good reason. For one, the current power crisis that has sucked the blood out of the nation’s arteries for more than a decade could have been completely avoided and, even though it was allowed to develop as it has, could be greatly alleviated and reversed right now.
Apart from the obscene greed, incompetence and complete lack of ethics and principles displayed by many in government, one weakness or malady which has nothing to do with such matters and is a basic management principle runs from top to bottom in government – and I mean right from the very highest office in the land to the most junior position …
They just can’t make decisions.
Yes, when you strip down the inaction and failure to act to address the crisis, it’s glaringly apparent that government officials simply have no decision making skills.
I make this point, not because I wish to lecture or criticise government officials (it won’t help anyway), but to highlight, for the business community, just how important it is to get your decision making right if you want to build and run an increasingly successful business.
Here, then, are five tips to sharpen up your decision making.
Decision making requires intent
If you have no desire to make decisions, you won’t. Leaders are often referred to as decision makers. That’s because they are. Without decisions being made by those in leadership positions, nothing will happen. You can have 10, 100 or 10,000 employees working for you and waiting for a decision to be made. If those in the decision making positions have no intent to make routine, ad hoc, planned and innovative decisions, you’re paying those 10,000 people for nothing. Indecisiveness has no place among leaders.
Decision making requires collaboration
The days of one “head honcho” making a decision and others doing what they’re told (also known as command and control or dictatorship) are history. I know I’m repeating myself when I refer to Ken Blanchard’s dictum that, “None of us is as smart as all of us,” but it aptly highlights just how powerful collective intelligence or collective wisdom is.
Secure leaders call for ideas from their people at all levels. They listen to what comes out with an open mind and with no hidden agenda. They sift through the ideas, refer them to others for their opinions and then make a decision. Insecure leaders, on the other hand (think Donald Trump), refuse and avoid the advice of others for fear that people will think those other people are smarter than them. Remember how, at the height of the pandemic, Trump refused to listen to the advice of the highly qualified medical advisors he had access to? I rest my case.
This might come as a surprise, but collaboration involves listening. Without leaders who listen, challenges, crises and opportunities will never be recognised for what they are with an appropriate decision making response to do something about the challenge, crisis or opportunity.
If you want to be a decisive leader, listen to your people when they complain, listen to them when they engage in casual conversation and listen to them when they gossip. Bear in mind that listening doesn’t just refer to taking information in, it involves processing that information, analysing it and exploring possible actions in light of what you’ve heard.
Decision making requires communication
You may make the most innovative, appropriate decisions but, if no-one gets told about them, they will go nowhere and nothing will change. Once you have made a decision, you need to communicate it to the people who need to execute it. You also need to communicate it to people who will be affected by it – otherwise known as change management. Quick tip about change management and communication … When you’ve made a decision to undertake change, make a point of over communicating that decision. There’s a very important reason for this. When the change finally starts happening, people treat it as old news (“Yeah, yeah, you’ve been telling us about this for some time now,”) and the resistance to change is greatly reduced, if not eliminated. It’s when those changes are not communicated and catch people by surprise that things go sour.
Decision making requires courage
Believe it or not, many government and business leaders come up short in the courage department. They simply lack courage and are consequently afraid to commit, afraid of what others will think and afraid of failure, so end up with the old “analysis paralysis”. They discuss, talk about and analyse a problem but don’t have the courage to make a decision and then execute it.
Decision making requires execution
All of the above is useless without any action being taken after a decision has been made. This is a trap many leaders fall into. They make a decision but fail to ensure that the decision is executed. Decisions are therefore only as good as the action that results from that decision.
You’ve heard it said that a mediocre strategy with excellent implementation is far better than an excellent strategy with poor implementation. The same applies to decisions. No execution is as good as no decision having been made. So, once you’ve made a decision, put your energy and effort into making that decision a reality.
In closing, my simplified definition of agility is the speed at which a decision is made, communicated and executed in an organisation. You want to be an agile leader? You want to build and lead an agile organisation? Start making good decisions, communicate them and ensure that they’re executed!
Alan Hosking is the Publisher of HR Future magazine, www.hrfuture.net and @HRFuturemag. He is an internationally recognised authority on leadership competencies for the future and teaches experienced and younger business leaders how to lead with empathy, compassion, integrity, purpose and agility. He has been an Age Management Coach for two decades. In 2018, he was named by US-based web site Disruptordaily.com as one of the “Top 25 Future of Work Influencers to Follow on Twitter“. In 2020, he was named one of the “Top 200 Global Power Thought Leaders to watch in 2021” by peopleHum in India. In 2022, he has been named on the Power List of the “Top 200 Biggest Voices in Leadership in 2022” by LeaderHum.
