Decisions
Philip Rodney recently wrote in ‘The Times’* about how careless decision-making was creating casualties. He highlighted – as if we didn’t already know this – that decision-making is a key element of business success. So if it is, how is it continually going wrong?
I come from a background where you were literally only as good as your last decision. Over a dozen years as a senior police officer I had to make real-time, critical decisions on a daily basis. High-risk missing people, armed incidents, and at the scene of fatal and serious collisions were just a few. On top of that, as the force PR officer, I’d have to carefully measure our press output, deciding what was released and when in order to maintain the integrity of ongoing cases. If I got any of those ‘wrong’, I would be for the high jump, or at the very least a whole world of hurt. Look at the case of David Dukinfield, whose fateful instruction to open a gate led to the deaths of 96 innocent people, and his own life literally going on hold for thirty years until a court decided his own fate. When it is people’s lives you are dealing with, you really do know what the pressure of decision-making is like.
Philip states that decisions are often made in the mode of ‘jumping to conclusions without properly reflecting on the question or researching the answer.’ He also highlights the risks of making decisions on incomplete information or flawed logic.
I’m sorry – but I’m just not buying this…
Industry and other organisations are employing people on Rock-Star wages. For me, you get paid the big bucks to shoulder the risk – but also to minimise it using your acumen and expertise. A lot of that is going to come down to making sound decisions. The initial police commander of a developing firearms incident is going to have to make some pretty heavy choices with very scant information. They haven’t the option to wait and see – lives depend on it. They need to get on with it – developing the response as it progresses. So if we demand this from a fifty grand-a-year police inspector, should we not be demanding more from our five hundred grand-a-year CEO’s? Fortunately, the solution to this is simple enough. It had to be, because most cops aren’t alumni of Harvard. They need to ‘know their stuff’, but at the heart of it all is a simple, cyclical decision model.
Careers in policing and business have taught me a lot, and melding the two experiences and what I now know into a workable decision model for other organisations, has been one of my biggest achievements to date. If you want to find a way to make sure your next big decision is ‘career defining’ for all the right reasons, do get in touch!
https://www.kbotraining.com/decision-model
Derek Flint Cert. Ed., MCIPR