Four Benefits.

I know what you’re thinking:

‘I make decisions all day. That’s all I do. Decision making is so routine that I don’t even think about it. And I certainly don’t need to be ‘taught’ how to make decisions by you, or anyone else. That would be embarrassing, quite frankly.’

I hear you…

… and see what you did there?

You showed your working out.

You made your work visible.

You could have just felt patronised by the idea you need to learn how to make a good decision - and moved on. I would never be the wiser as to why.

Instead - you gave me a ‘because’ - which has four benefits:

First, adding a ‘because’ significantly increases my compliance.

Second, it forces you to reflect on your decision, because you have to make it conscious, even if you just think about it and don’t tell me.

Third, it gives me the opportunity to modify my thinking, based on the reasoning you’ve given OR for me to modify your thinking.

Finally, if I work for you or with you, making your work visible helps me to learn from and therefore use, or predict your decisions - which makes less decisions for you to make.

Having a decision making process makes us better decision makers. Making that process visible, or at least becoming aware of our process (assuming we even have one) improves not just our process, but the behaviours of those around us.

In a word: Leading.