The Good Decision Making Workshop (35th Floor) Elevator Pitch.

All Leadership and Management boil down to good decision making.

A good decision is one that advances us towards where we want to be.

Therefore - we need to be clear about where we want to be.

‘We’ as a person and ‘we’ as an organisation.

A person joins an organisation because there is a mutual need to be somewhere - the organisation is going somewhere (selling widgets) that will help me to get to where I want to be (paying the mortgage) - and vice versa.

The Good Decision Making Workshop begins with participants privately identifying where they personally want to be, before they collaboratively identify where the organisation wants to be.

Thus after the first half an hour - each person should all be very clear that I choose to be in the organisation to take it - and therefore me - to where we want to be. If not … then … why am I working here?

- ‘The first job of a Leader is to define reality..'

Good decision making is a deliberate process of inquiry that advances us towards where we want to be.

Therefore - we need to have a Deliberate Process of Inquiry.

You can make up your own - or…here’s one I prepared earlier - my Five Steps to a Good Decision.

Whatever process we choose - we have consistency so we can measure our progress, show others our navigating, and make corrections as we go along - including potentially course-correcting as we re-define where we want to be.

As long as you follow the process, you can never be wrong - and I would argue, you can never make a ‘bad’ decision - because every decision should tell you more about where you are in relation to where you want to be - personally and organisationally. ‘Mistakes’ serve continuous improvement. Our Five Steps are the ‘black box’ we can open up and check the data to see exactly where we went ‘wrong’.

If you make a good decision (i.e. apply a deliberate process of inquiry that’s advancing you…) and you turn around and at least one person is following - you’re a Leader. OR If you’re a Leader, you should have a deliberate process of inquiry that makes visible your decision making for others to follow.

Simple!

Good Decision Making is the framework for:

• conflict avoidance

• conflict resolution

• complaints management

• management

• leadership

• Life!

A million military, aviation analogies will help explain these concepts.

In the Ideal Organisation, these concepts would be cascaded from the top, down. That’s what I did at Curtin University (where every Faculty approached me and asked to have me deliver the workshops - they were never mandatory).

The top-down training gives every person at every level comfort that my boss is on the same page, and their boss is on the same page, and that if I follow her deliberate process of inquiry towards our mutually understood purpose - she will support me regardless of the outcome.

So ideally the workshop is presented to:

Executives.

Senior Leaders.

Middle Leaders.

Teams.

or…

Run a pilot workshop and decide what parts of your decision making hierarchy would benefit most.

The boss of Curtin Business School described the workshop as ‘the best PD’ he’d ever done.

Minimum time is three hours - though I have a version that needs a five day residential on Hayman Island... ;)

For your consideration.