Decision Making Process during VUCA.

Following situation is the new normal now, however if it would have been 3 months back, what would have been your response?

Imagine the situation where you come to know that your 25% employees are infected with the virus. There is a panic situation outside the organization because of increased pandemic. Employees & managers are worried. Your management has to take the decision about the continuity of the operations considering employee safety. Your plants need to run, otherwise it will have a major impact on the business. On the other side, the government has their own rules to handle such things. Media may be behind you hence your reputation is at stake. You have to take care of employees; engage with union and society; think about business and need to take few decisions as a leader or you have to facilitate the decision-making process in the organization in such crucial periods.    

I think most of the leaders have gone through such situations. During heightened VUCA (with high Volatile, Uncertain, Complex, Ambitious) situations, normal decision-making process can break down. Some people become paralysed and afraid to act however few others make quick decisions based on emotions or bias rather than fact.

During such uncertain situations, our decisions may be affected because of a lot of information, which is not authentic, contradictory views of experts, (like virus spread through air also), bias information shared by some people, media, politicians etc. During the decision-making process, we may overreact on certain information or overestimate or underestimate based from where it is coming. If there are infinite, clue less information, you may not be able to think rationally.

So? During such situations, it is always good to focus on the purpose and specific alternatives step by step. You may need to brainstorm with the team of decision makers to get more information, knowledge, you need to know before moving forward. Formulate the right question (for others and yourself) that will help you to get the right answers.

Once you get all answers, classify the information in the following format.

Behaviour & Feeling: This is a human dimension where you will understand the feeling sideof the information and consequent behaviour. During covid19 situations people become worried (feeling) and hence they are demonstrating frustrations (behaviour) & then they share weird information is one of the examples of this.  Sometimes this is just the reaction based on the nature of the person. 

Opinion: People generate their opinions after the situation. The opinion may be biased again based on certain assumptions and nature of the person.    

Knowledge: This part is easier to understand; however, you need to be aware about the situation fully. The covid19 infection in India is around 4.46 million but the recovery rate is around 75%. knowing this data and interpreting it, is the knowledge.           

This practice will help you to bring the diverse perspective and the variety in the decision-making process. This will also help to address your immediate emotional response.       

There are other tools which you can try in your team like Six Thinking Hats to generate more alternatives and  Weighted Criteria Assessment for better decision making.

Sometimes some decisions need strong intuition and you can read more about here Intuitive Decision Making

(Opinions are purely personal & does not represent my organization)

Please read the print replica of my latest book written for leaders on amazon kindle; Vitality in Human Resource  

Different cognitive biases that affect decision making ...

(Source: 20 cognitive biases that screw up your decision)

Six Thinking Hats

The main difficulty in thinking is confusion. --Edward de Bono

Are we thinking clearly and effectively on how to handle opportunities as well as conflicts? Do we know what form of thinking is the most appropriate in each situation? How can we improve the way we think as a team? There are different ways of thinking that can help us analyse situations and reach decisions in the most productive way and with the least conflict.

We seem to be jugglers in life, striving to handle the information coming to us at an incredible speed. Our emotions are set off by thousands of stimuli. We try to reason logically about what is happening or could happen to us; we have hopeful visions, pessimistic projections and creative ideas. Also, as we face critical situations at work, we may be thinking about our children, our homes and our families. It's often difficult to focus.

The Six Thinking Hats

Developed by Dr. Edward de Bono, the Six Thinking Hats® is a simple and effective parallel thinking process that helps people become more productive, focused, and mindfully involved. You learn to separate thinking into six distinct modes, which are identified with their own metaphorical "hat." By mentally wearing and switching "hats," you change your mode of thinking.

The Six Thinking Hats will help you increase the constructive output from meetings and decrease meeting duration; explore each situation or problem and generate alternatives that go beyond obvious solutions; and use "parallel thinking" techniques to avoid adversarial thinking and encourage ideas.

To Ensure the Method Works

For the method to work, intentions must lead to performance. In one of my workshop for my employees, I share with my learning partners the phrase “intention without action does not create transformation.”
No matter how great our intentions are, if we don’t move in the right direction, our best aspirations to improve our ways of thinking are useless. De Bono asserts that intention is the first step, but we need structures to carry that intention into action and transform it into results. We need structures for our thinking process to be become as productive as possible. That’s where the six "hats" come in:

White Hat – Information: it is neutral and objective. It deals with objective facts and figures. “Do not interpret. Consider only the facts, please.” It's "pure intellect."

Red Hat – Intuition, emotions, feelings: it suggests rage, fury, passion. It provides the emotional point of view, what the person wearing this hat feels about what is being analysed. “I don’t like what I'm seeing.” “Why?” “It doesn't matter, I just don’t like it.” It's the "beating heart."

Black Hat – Criticism, carefulness, pessimism: it is sad and negative. It covers the negative aspects of why something cannot be done. “This doesn't fit. This won’t work because…” It's the "devil’s advocate."

Yellow Hat – Benefits, values, profits: it is happy and positive. It optimistically covers hope, stimulating positive thought, finding the advantages of the suggested idea or situation being analysed. “I like this because…” It's the "bright sun."

Green Hat – Creativity, alternatives, and possibilities: it is vegetation and fertile growth. In our Indian culture, it is hope and abundance. It suggests the creativity and new ideas about the situation being analysed. “What if we…” “Hey, let’s do this!” It's the "fertile tree."

Blue Hat – Control of the process: it's cold and, like the sky, it's over and above everything. It deals with control and organization of the thought process, as well as the use of the other hats. “Hey, let’s take it step by step. Let’s not get confused.” It's the "orchestra conductor."

The Six-Thinking-Hats method can help you develop your personal thinking processes. However, it is particularly useful to ensure your team becomes more productive when analysing and deciding strategies and possibilities.

Use these ideas to ensure your thinking and the thinking of your team become increasingly clear, creative and productive.

(For more details please contact Edward de Bono's authorised certified trainer)

Weighted criteria assessment in decision making

The Weighted Criteria Assessment is a method designed to support decision making where there are different alternatives. Fro example you want to change the job and you are in dilemma to change or not. This is based on your analysis and priority of the alternatives and different factors which are considered. As the title suggests, these criteria are 'weighted' based on their importance to the decision. The idea is to provide an objective assessment of a decision (which can be a job change or decision required to take a new house). Any number of attributes, factors or decisions can be compared.

There are essentially three steps to completing the Assessment Matrix:

1) Identify Criteria: A list of relevant criteria or dimensions needs to be created, it is often useful to group these criteria under general headings to faciliate communication and to also ensure that one heading with many criteria does not dominate the entire decision process (e.g. ten items under the heading “location” (in case of taking a new home) might dominate one item under the heading “distance” even both location and distance might have the same overall weighting for the decision).

2) Determine Weightings: Each criterion must be assigned a 'weighting'. In the matrix the weightings can be on a scale of 1 – 5. It is also possible to use a "Low, Medium, High" form of rating. You can either use an overall fixed weighting system (a total value for all critieria not to exceed 100 for example) or you can simply add as many critieria with their respective weightings as you wish. It is often valuable to enter a percentage at the grouping level to illustrate the importance of the grouping to the overall decision.

3) Ranking Decisions: With the criteria and their weightings determined, the next step is to put 'rankings' for how each decision variable fits the criteria. In this matrix, the rankings are on a scale of 1 - 5 although once again any scale could be used. After applying the rankings the matrix has to calculate a total weighted assessment and will 'recommend' one of the decisions automatically for you.

Benefits:

One of the benefits is you have a strong case on your decision and is based on the objective data.

It also helps in the decision making process and is an effective tool for communicating to other stakeholders the criteria and how they relate to the decision being made. This develops consensus on the criteria and weightings used and is a relatively quick way to get input from stakeholders.

Take an example of comparing two companies while changing the job.

While changing the job, you need to take the decision based on objective dimensions. Mostly the candidate sees the CTC and job profile, but if you only depend upon these two dimensions, you may end up in different area altogether. Hence other factors also need to be considered. In the example I have prepared some factors which should be taken care off. However you need to take a call for job change based on your priorities in your life. For example you may weight salary more against the company culture or vice versa.

As a final suggestion, it is often important to have a companion document that explains each criterion in enough detail that it is clear what the criteria represent.

Please download this file and follow the discussion on employee attrition on http://www.citehr.com/401772-decision-matrix-while-changing-job.html

Do you consider your intuition while taking decisions?



Albert Einstein on Intuition



I had one manager in past who was very critical on the data and use to take time to take decisions. He would ask so many questions on the data. He was fully relied on the data. But it would take so much time and the issues would be solved by another person or would hang till somebody else would enter into the same.  He was neither an effective decision maker nor an effective leader.

In another case, the manager was taking fast decisions. He also would use the data but was more relied on actual fact and related gut feelings. In some cases you have huge data mined by your team for you and have a little time. How you would take a decision in such situation?

If you follow the rational and theoretical process of decision, then you would not be able to take half of the decision in day to day life due to time constraints.     

Imagine, you are walking on the road and suddenly stray dog comes in front you. You become consciously alert of the danger. Your mind acts accordingly and you try to avoid the stray dog by distancing yourself from the dog. What you do here? Your mind process the data and you take a decision. In decision making process, you find out the danger and then you take a decision depending on your intuition. When there is no data, or data is huge and you have a little time or just your data is not working, your intuition helps you. You need to develop your intuition. Great decisions by great industry leaders are taken. Take an example of Dhirubhai Ambani. The foundation of the Jamnagar refinery was decided by Dhirubhai and not by engineers. (Engineers had assured that time that Jamnagar was not the seismic region (based on the data).  You know the results, during earthquake, it remain safe.     

Successful professionals do not make a great many decisions. They concentrate on what is important. They try to make the few important decisions on the highest level of conceptual understanding. For this they need to be able to withdraw from within themselves intuitive, subjective information to help them in their decisions.

Intuition is the ability to tap your feelings to make better decisions. Throughout our formal education we receive instructions on how to follow guidelines. We learn methodologies and acquire information. This creates the basis for deductive reasoning.

The ultimate expression of deductive reasoning is intuition. Through reason we can make a decision based on numbers, however, logical reasoning is not enough in today’s complex world.

Intuition is what distinguishes the mature professional from just the manager. To do this effectively, professionals have to understand the substance of themselves and their rolls and that of the people under them. They must understand the essence of this work and visualize the future. Intuition is what enables them to do this.

But, how do we find intuition? One way to look for it is to follow our common sense, what feels right to us. Intuition occurs spontaneously. When executives are controlled by their egos or their intellect, they don’t let their minds free to use their intuition. Using your intuition is like having a sixth sense. It is like lighting up the mind to enable executives to make the best decisions.

Do you have a choice?

If you get a chance to go back in your past and change your past decisions, would you change some decisions? I can certainly say that you would definitely like to change few which had adversely affected your life. But the fact is that we can’t go and change our past. We have to live with the past we have.

The only thing we can do to choose that decision. I remember the conversion happened with my friend. We both were studying our management. One day he came with new shirt.

“Vinod, usually my parents buy shirt for me, but this is the shirt of my choice,” he said.

“Oh really?” I asked, “How you did that?”

“Yesterday, I went to the shop, asked salesperson to show me shirts and I choose one.” He replied.

“Do you think you choose the shirt?” I asked.

“Off course, I chose one.”

“You did not choose the shirt.”

“Then?”

“You saw different shirt and out of these entire lot, you selected best shirt. Is this a choice? No. you took the decision to purchase one shirt out of different shirts. There were different alternative before you and you chose one. This is not a choice, but mere you decision to purchase a best suited shirt.”

“You are crazy, you are impossible. This is all philosophy. You are playing with words.”  He laughed.

“May be! Did you have in mind what you want? And did you get in shop exactly what you had in mind?”

“No. How it is possible?” Friend asked me.

“You find out the answer.” I smiled and put the ball in his court. I remember, the discussion on choice and decision continued almost for 2 hours and we could not conclude.  

What we do in life. We take decisions and we say that we have the choice.

What you do in decisions? You have different alternatives with you and you select one option which you think is a better. In life everybody checks different alternatives; even arrange marriages are based on decisions.  

What is the choice? Choice is what you like. Choice is the freedom of choosing something with all good or bad qualities.

Taking decision is the inevitable part of life and nescience of alternative can make your life measurable. However once the decision is taken, you should not worry of its consequences. You can not go in the past and change your decisions. There should not be any regret, only lessons. We should learn from the past and go ahead.

Choose whatever you get. Choosing is accepting what you have. Choosing is accepting with wholly and not partially. You can not accept well and ignore bad.

When it comes to relations, you have to choose your relation wholly with good or bad traits. And that is the freedom of choosing. That is the choice. Even if you have any alternative in front you, have should choose thy whole heartedly.

With reference to the context……

The General Manager along with head of all functions would review the status and discuss day to day operations. The big company with lot of activities with 2000 plus employees needs daily review for smooth operations. One of the issues was related long pending agreement with trade union. The union was dominant, 10% of the workforce was comprised with corporators, ex-corporators, leaders of different political parties around the area. Inside the factory they all were united under one flag. As they have different ideologies outside the company, union also has lot of challenges.

Due to this, negotiations took long time and both parties could not enter into the agreement. It was pending almost one year.

The company celebrates its founder day every year in October. Union decided to boycott the function. All blue collar workmen did not turn up for the function. But the function was great success with participation of staff and their family members.

Next day, union requested that they would like to pay the homage to the founder, in the premises of the company. All the functional head were in the opinion that they had nothing to do with the founder, if they had, they would have to be present on founder day. They should not be allowed.

There was lots of discussion. At the end of the day, General Manager was one side and all others were at another side including HR Head.

There was another Dy. Manager working in HR. General Manager called the guy in the meeting room.

“Union is asking the place in the premises of the company for their gathering?” what is your opinion?” he asked.

“No we should not permit their gathering inside the company premises.” He replied.

“Do you know for what this is?”

“No sir,”

“They do not want for conducting any meeting. It is for paying the homage to the founder”

Guy looks to HR head, expecting some signal. He just smiles.

“They have committed that they would not create any nuisance. As a part of agitation, they boycotted yesterday’s function organized by the local management. They had taken the move considering the sentiments of their members. This is just synchronicity. Our today’s decision should be considering the same sentiment.” GM explained.

“I agree sir, our decision should be matured. We can not work like they work. I suggest we should allow them to give the permission for paying the homage to our founder.”

After lot of discussion considering the context, the proposal was accepted by all members.

“We should always understand the context before arriving on any conclusion. It is always better to consider the matters with reference to the context.” General Manager concluded the meeting.

Do we consider the context before concluding something?

Do you create clerks?

Most of the managers create clerks. They do not want to develop their team members. They want to be on the top of the situation which we should appreciate, but they underestimate the power of empowerment and delegation. If you ask team members to take some decision, they will tell you lot of reasons for avoiding the decision. But this is not only about the decision. One of the senior managers was always telling me that every decision is taken by an employee, but the organization has assigned the responsibility to somebody as a signing authority, it goes to that authority for validation; hence your decision should be effective enough but what he was preaching was not always practicing. If somebody had taken the decision, he would criticize on and always would challenge the decision. At the end of the day employee would be frustrated. After that he would not take any decision and would go to him for everything.

What normally managers expect from their team? Just have a look on any employee. There is big hierarchy in most of the organizations. General Managers, Dy. General Managers, Chief Managers, Sr. Managers, Managers, Executives etc etc. for each functions. Everybody in the team wants to take the decision, General Managers speaks about delegation and empowerment, and it is push to the DGM, to Sr. Managers. Everything comes on the table of Executive. Poor executive does everything, but he has to struggle to run from his line manager who asks him to wait so that he would take the matter to his line manager and likewise goes on to the General Manager. General Manager would give the big lecture on personal productivity, accountability and empowerment. This is all philosophical only for preaching. Next day if somebody takes the decision, he would ask lot of questions and will challenge the credibility of that decision.

Micro management is another issue most of the professionals suffer (!). One of the directors, (such designations are always fancy in India, actually this guy was a purely head clerk) I have seen wanted to know everything what’s happening in the organization. He wanted to control the managers. Managers won't feel internally committed if someone always controlling them from the top down. In such cases accountability doesn’t come.

We always live the world of paradoxes. We speak about delegation and empowerment, but we don’t pass the authority and still we expect the accountability and ownership. It doesn’t take much if you start the empowerment. It is an engagement issue. For example you must have seen the HR Head signing each and every paper even including provident fund nomination forms, returns, etc. Unless you do not empower the person to sign the documents, his commitment and accountability will not be at expected level. I have seen the case where HR director went on a business tour for 15 days, in his absence; he has not nominated his manager to sign the documents. All the documents would go to another director for signing. How you can expect that the manager would exhibit the ownership in this case. Philosophically yes, he should show, but real world is not the philosophy. It is individual and commitment driven.
The million dollar question is how to bring this internal commitment from both sides?