You want to lead a successful company that continues to grow, looks after the people that you employ, and makes a positive difference in the world. But when you have critical decisions to make it can weigh on your mind considerably, and lead to a common crossroads of feeling:
- Anxious, doubting yourself and getting waves of imposter syndrome.
- Fearful of failure and not wanting to let people down.
- Guilty about getting decisions wrong.
- Restless and stressed until key decisions are made.
There are ways in which you can reduce the weight and burden of responsibility when it comes to decision making, which you will hopefully glean from reading the article.
Interestingly there are some statistics shared by McKinsey on decision making that suggest:
We’re getting closer to AI being a great companion to support decision making, but 70% would prefer a robot to make their decisions. That’s a shocker. I think we would all prefer decisions to be made faster and be of consistent high quality, but surely not by robots.
How do growth minded leaders make good decisions?
For those of you that would prefer to improve your human decision making approach, there are a few key strategies that growth minded leaders adopt and succeed with.
1 – Maintain Objectivity. Park your own ego and appreciate that you don’t know everything. Take a step back and park your own thoughts and opinions. The biggest trap to losing objectivity is making decisions based on assumption or just knee jerk reacting. To help you remove assumptions, involve other people. People with the knowledge and wisdom in the subject matter. Depending on the decision that needs to be made, sometimes the expertise is within your business already, and sometimes not and you need to get some outside perspective to support you. There is no badge of honour for making all your decisions on your own. Growth minded leaders are not afraid to ask for help or engage others in decision making.
2 – Delegate. As well as involving and engaging others in the decision making process, sometimes the best thing to do is to delegate the decision to the person who is responsible and closest to the issue. I’ve sat in a meeting with an MD before, where we were interrupted for a 10-minute discussion on where to buy some £1 a roll masking tape from, B&Q or Aldi. Are you involved in decisions that you don’t need to be? You need to trust the people with the role responsibilities to do the jobs you are paying them for. It is hugely empowering to be given the responsibility and authority to make your own decisions. Growth minded leaders ensure that the responsibility and authority to make decisions is at the right level in the business.
3 – Clarity of Vision & Strategy. A good decision is one that is aligned and being prioritised with the core needs of the business. If you and your team don’t know what the priorities are, and the key business objectives are not clear, how can people make good decisions? Set priority objectives and ensure adequate time is set aside to communicate and review the results (based on facts and data). Growth minded leaders are clear about the vision, set annual business objectives (and review them quarterly) and ensure projects are being prioritised that will provide the highest return for the business.
4 – Embrace Failure. Making decisions, failing fast and learning from what you’ve done is an agile way of moving your business forwards. Doing something is better than doing nothing in most cases. When you avoid procrastinating and act, you get the opportunity to learn something. If you want a culture that is open to change and moving at pace, failure is a good sign that things are happening in the business. Many business leaders punish people for making decisions that don’t go well, which leads to people avoiding taking risks and testing new ideas. Growth minded leaders encourage failure and celebrate people making decisions to test new ideas and concepts.
5 – Learn. You will never get all your decisions right all the time, but by making decisions you will get the opportunity to learn from them. There is a great technique to help you (and your team) improve your decision making. Think back to the last time you made the wrong decision on something big or critical. Now write down the assumptions you made that were incorrect. What did you assume that you found out post decision to be incorrect? This can be your checklist for your next big decision. We are all creatures of habit, so it’s likely that you will do the same thing again unless you put some effort into changing your habits. Growth minded leaders never stop learning, work on being as self-aware as possible and are always looking for ways to improve their own effectiveness.
Hopefully these ideas will help you to make faster and more consistent high-quality decisions in your business. Unless you decide to go down the route of handing it over to a robot to make your decisions for you.
Summary | Become a Growth Minded Leader and a Good Decision Maker
To provide yourself and your team with the best framework for making good decisions for your business, you should:
1 – Maintain objectivity by asking for help or engaging others in important decisions.
2 – Delegate and ensure that the responsibility and authority to make decisions is at the right level in the business.
3 – Be clear about the vision and strategy, set annual business objectives (and review them quarterly based on facts and data) and ensure projects are being prioritised that will provide the highest return for the business.
4 – Encourage action and failing fast and celebrate people making decisions to test new ideas and concepts.
5 – Be a lifelong learner, work on being as self-aware as possible and always look for ways to improve your own effectiveness.
How could we help you to improve your decision making skills?
At the Manufacturers’ Alliance we work with progressive and purposeful leaders in the manufacturing industry that want to continue to grow and develop themselves and their businesses.
1 – One option that works well for the majority of our customers would be to join a peer group and learn from other leaders on how they make decisions (providing you with an external perspective with no agenda).
2 – The other option would be to work with one of our leadership coaches to work with you individually on improving your decision making skills. Someone that will ask the right questions of you and challenge your thinking.
This article was written by the Founder and Managing Director of the Manufacturers’ Alliance, Gary Sheader. Gary is keen to support open minded and ambitious business leaders in the manufacturing sector with the development of their leadership capability. He believes that if we can provide great leadership to the sector the UK economy and community will thrive.
