Making Difficult Decisions E-Book

Peter J. A. Shaw

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Fachliteratur
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 296

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2010

Beschreibung

You are faced with so many difficult decisions. Often your decision making seems random. It can be swayed by different situations and emotions. You need to be more rigorous in the way you make decisions and yet you have very little time to do so. Experience from others who have made tough decisions and a framework to help you do so would be invaluable. The courage to make decisions is sometimes a bit elusive. It is difficult to find the calmness to be able to make and live with those decisions. There is so much that can be learned from the experience of others. After working through this book you will have the courage of your convictions and the ability to make difficult decisions count. The book sets out a framework for making difficult decisions that has been tried and tested. It has been used successfully in one-to-one coaching with senior leaders in both the public, private and voluntary sectors. The framework is built on the following strands: Clarity; Conviction; Courage; and Communication.

Leseprobe

Table of Contents

Title Page

Copyright Page

Dedication

Acknowledgements

Other books by Peter Shaw

Foreword

Introduction

Principles of decision-making

How to use this book

Your reflections on decision-making

Part 1 - The 4Cs of making difficult decisions

Chapter 1 - Balancing clarity and conviction

The stark reality

Living with reality

Balancing clarity and conviction where information is partial

The balance between clarity and conviction

Next steps

Chapter 2 - Clarity

The issue

The analysis

The way forward

Next steps

Chapter 3 - Conviction

The key elements

Testing the significance of convictions

Next steps

Chapter 4 - Courage

Action

Reflection

Ensuring progress

Next steps

Chapter 5 - Communication

Building understanding

Building agreement

Taking action

Next steps

Part 2 - Taking forward making difficult decisions

Chapter 6 - Applying the learning from good decision makers

A rugby referee

A Chief Constable

A High Court Judge

A UK Ambassador

A chief executive

Observing others effectively

Handling a forthcoming demanding decision

Next steps

Chapter 7 - Embedding the ability to make difficult decisions

What are we embedding?

Recognising that embedding the ability to make difficult decisions is not linear

Creating structures which help embed the ability to make difficult decisions

Techniques to embed the ability to make difficult decisions

Next steps

Chapter 8 - Enabling others to make difficult decisions

Effective engagement at the heart of good decision-making

The importance of standing back

Following your instinct

Building trust in others

Next steps

Chapter 9 - Key questions when making difficult decisions

The right questions

Questions or assertions

What happens when you ask a good question?

Next steps

Part 3 - Making difficult decisions in particular circumstances

Chapter 10 - Making difficult decisions as the boss

Introducing better decision-making into your senior team

Changing the values of your organisation

Taking a decision when your senior team have differing views

Moving a senior member out of your team

Being compelled to readdress an issue

Next steps

Chapter 11 - Making difficult decisions in relation to your boss

Enabling your boss to face up to a decision they are ducking

Influencing your boss to make a decision in support of your favoured approach

Holding firm when your boss is demanding an immediate decision

Rebuilding a relationship after a difference of view on a decision

Next steps

Chapter 12 - Making difficult decisions in relation to your peers

Persuading a peer that the decision they are moving towards is wrong

Building support from colleagues for a decision you want to make

Building a relationship with peers which provides the framework for effective ...

Building a wider network which will enable decisions to be made more ...

Next steps

Chapter 13 - Dealing with your hopes and fears

Handling a situation where you are indecisive

Facing a decision you do not like taking

Recovering from a wrong decision

Holding firm when courage fails you

Next steps

Chapter 14 - Addressing values and priorities

Guarding against difficult decisions sapping energy

Work and personal priorities are at odds with each other

Work and personal values are at odds with each other

Balancing long- and short-term priorities

Next steps

Chapter 15 - Next steps

Selected bibliography

Index

Copyright © 2008 by Peter Shaw

First published in 2008 Capstone Publishing Ltd. (a Wiley Company) The Atrium, Southern Gate, Chichester, PO19 8SQ, UK. www.wileyeurope.comEmail (for orders and customer service enquires): [email protected]

The right of Peter Shaw to be identified as the author of this book has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning or otherwise, except under the terms of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 or under the terms of a licence issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency Ltd, 90 Tottenham Court Road, London W1T 4LP, UK, without the permission in writing of the Publisher. Requests to the Publisher should be addressed to the Permissions Department, John Wiley & Sons Ltd, The Atrium, Southern Gate, Chichester, West Sussex PO19 8SQ, England, or emailed to [email protected], or faxed to ([phone].

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Dedicated to our son Colin who is an inspiration as he makes difficult decisions well

Acknowledgements

Many people have shaped my thinking in writing this book. Some have influenced directly as a result of detailed conversation while the influence of others has been less overt. I am grateful to them all.

Many people have given generously of their time. I have sought the perspective of a wide range of people. The following have been especially generous with their time: Nicky Munro, John Thomas, Chris Banks, Stephen Timms, Charles Macrae, Pete Worrall, William Patey, Norman Haste, Philip Wood, Peter Collis, James Hirst, Jane Willis, John Suffolk, John Gieve, Justin McCracken, Linda Freestone, Archie Hughes, Martin Oakley, Gill Lucas, Paul Connew, Leigh Lewis, David Normington, Julie Taylor, Eoin McLennon-Murray, Alice Perkins, Nick Holgate, Paul Buckley, Mel Zuydam, Suma Chakrabarti, Finlay Scott, Julian Duxfield, Anna Ford, John Saunders, Dorcas Batstone, Gordon Wetherell, Bill Brackenridge, Roger King, Paul West, Jeremy Cooke, Lesley Strathie, Charlie Massey, May O’Keefe, Robert Green, Adele Townsend, Peter Buckley, Jane Frost, Nicola Haskins, Andrew Holmes, Una O’Brien, Sunil Patel, Andrew Jackson and Mal Singh. I take full responsibility for the views in the book but the perspective of those mentioned above has been invaluable. These special people come from very diverse worlds: they have all been perceptive sources of wisdom.

I am grateful to a number of people who read the manuscript and provided excellent feedback. The comments of Mairi Eastwood, Robin Linnecar, Heather Dawson, and Hilary Douglas helped clarify the thinking and meant that the text is clearer than it might have been!

My coaching clients have been a tremendous source of wisdom. I thoroughly enjoy working with them as they reflect on difficult decisions they have to take. Often we go on a journey of exploration together talking through the implications of different options. I hope that in some small way the conversations have helped my clients reach a point of clarity on their own next steps.

I am grateful to Nick Macpherson for contributing a foreword to the book. I always admired his clarity of thinking when we worked in the same areas and have observed with great pleasure the thoughtful leadership he brings as a Permanent Secretary.

John Wiley have been a very supportive publisher. Sally Smith commissioned the book, John Moseley has taken it through to the near final text and Jenny Ng has looked after the detailed arrangements for publication.

My Executive Assistant, Claire Pratt, has managed the diary carefully to ensure that I have been able to talk to a wide range of people in preparing the book. Judy Smith has typed the manuscript with great skill and continuous good humour. Claire and Judy have been a brilliant support team throughout the process of writing a number of books in the last four years.

I am grateful to my colleagues at Praesta Partners who are always a source of excellent wisdom and advice. As a team of coaches from a range of different backgrounds there is a continuous sharing of ideas and approaches where we are able to learn from each other.

It has been good to work with colleagues as fellow members of Godalming College Governing Body and St. John’s College Governing Body in Durham. Together we have had to take hard decisions and welcomed the mutual support and challenge from colleagues. Taking difficult decisions together has been much more rewarding than doing it separately.

I have refined the ideas in the book in a number of seminars with diverse groups including high potential staff in the UK Health and Safety Executive, curates in the diocese of Derby, a senior learning set at the UK Food Standards Agency, senior leaders on the UK Cabinet Office Pathways programme and a Men’s Breakfast at St. Paul’s Church, Tervuren in Brussels.

I am grateful to my family who have encouraged me in the writing and allowed me the opportunity to retreat into the study with dictaphone in hand. I am no expert in decision-making. I acknowledge in particular the influence of those who have helped me crystallise my own thinking when I needed to make decisions. Colin, to whom this book is dedicated, has always been an astute decision maker. I admire his ability to make quick decisions when playing sport at international level. As parents we must have done something right!

Finally I believe that decision-making is about drawing from our intellectual, physical, emotional and spiritual awareness. At the heart of good decision-making is being open-minded and yet rooted in your own values at the same time. It is that combination of determination and reflection, of focus alongside flexibility, that helps ensure we make the best possible decisions.

Other books by Peter Shaw

Mirroring Jesus as Leader, Grove, 2004

Conversation Matters: how to engage effectively with one another, Continuum, 2005

The Four Vs of Leadership: vision, values, value-added, vitality, Capstone, 2006

Finding Your Future: the second time around, Darton, Longman and Todd, 2006

Business Coaching: achieving practical results through effective engagement, Capstone, 2007. (Co-authored with Robin Linnecar)

Forthcoming books

The Christian Leader in the Secular World of Work, Authentic, 2010.

The author’s royalties are going to Tearfund, which provides practical help for those in poverty to enable them to have a future and make their own decisions.

Foreword

I first met Peter Shaw more than twenty years ago. I had just joined the Treasury, and my job was to provide economic advice to the labour market policy team which Peter was then leading. The Treasury of those days attached a slightly lower priority to good management than it does now. And the building in Great George Street - consisting then of austere monkish cells - was less conducive to good communications than its modern open plan successor. To me, at that time, Peter shone out like a beacon. In a world of hard-nosed introverts, here was a man of rare compassion and humanity who could communicate and lead. To the civil service’s credit, these skills were recognised, and all too rapidly he returned to his home department on promotion. Our paths have continued to cross over the years, more recently in his second career as a leadership coach, and it is a great privilege to be asked to write the Foreword to this book.

In any day, we all make hundreds of decisions. Most are easy. Some are difficult. It is the latter on which we tend to need help. Peter’s insight is to take the mystique out of the decision-making process; the faddish jargon of the traditional self-help book is not for him. He encourages us to deconstruct the components of a good decision through the simple paradigm of the 4Cs - clarity, conviction, courage and communication - and then goes on to provide some essential building blocks to develop our capabilities further.

Peter’s analysis resonates for me working in the Treasury, where a dominant theme is the allocation of scarce resources. The Treasury is a small institution, whose walls always seem to be about to be breached by the marauding hoards of spending departments and their demands. (Of course, from a spending department perspective, life seems very different!) This places a high premium on achieving ‘clarity’: the key elements, set out by Peter in Chapter 2 are music to a Treasury official’s ears: objectivity, defining the problem, being clear on the context, ensuring sound analysis, and so on.

But in my experience it is the less cerebral side to decision-making, the subject of Peter’s later chapters, which is critical if decisions are really going to stand the test of time. This is about recognising the human factor. First, in relation to those affected. As David Normington is quoted as saying in Chapter 3: ‘most of the decisions that are troublesome are all about people in the end’. Understanding how others will react by putting yourself in their shoes is a start. Investing in team building can also yield dividends. Using psychometrics has made the Treasury Management Board more effective: I have a better understanding of how my colleagues will react to decisions, ideas and events, and they have a better understanding of how I will react. That has been really useful in resolving difficult issues like the implementation of a challenging spending review settlement.

Secondly, it’s about nurturing your own decision-making space. That’s partly about time - sleeping on a decision can make all the difference (Chapter 13 on ‘dealing with your hopes and fears’ is relevant here). It is also literally about physical space - a walk round St James’ Park or a trip to a café. It is about being able to step back and remain calm, when all the pressure is to immerse yourself in the adrenalin of the moment. Good support systems are critical, whether in a domestic or work environment.

I was struck by Peter’s section on the ‘importance of conversations with colleagues’. In any job, you develop certain key relationships which provide real emotional and intellectual sustenance - I have a colleague with a very different personality type from me: I always find discussing any difficult decision with him reenergising, and he assures me that the relationship is reciprocal.

Peter’s book covers all these issues and more. And I commend it to anybody who is facing difficult and demanding decisions.

Nicholas Macpherson, Permanent Secretary, H M Treasury

Introduction

‘The die is cast’ were the words of Julius Caesar when he crossed the Rubicon. This was only a small stream forming part of the boundary between Italy and Gaul but the crossing of it marked the beginning of the war with Pompey. A decision had been taken with consequences both known and unknown. Crossing the Rubicon was just going across a river, but it was also a decision from which there was no turning back.

‘Decisions, decisions. Why so many decisions!’ protested the 18-year-old when there were so many choices about which university, which course, whether to have a gap year, which friends to spend time with, which summer job to do and (unspoken) what to do about those parents! Taking decisions at age 18 is a shock to the system, but is just the start of a long process of making choices.

How good are we at making decisions? Sometimes the decisions flow naturally. The correct choice is so obvious. At other times we vacillate, procrastinate and hesitate. There is an exterior of confidence and a chasm of doubt inside. We project an appearance of weighing up of the options, while in our darker moments we wrestle with uncertainty and bemoan our lack of clarity.

Sometimes our way of handling difficult decisions is to hold on to a rigid view with a tight grip, letting our prejudices determine our actions. On other occasions we have no grip at all and enjoy floundering in our own indecision. Being a victim of indecision can be such a wonderful indulgence sometimes.

What makes the difference between times when the decision is relatively easy and others where we flounder? How can we school ourselves to take difficult decisions well and calmly without the intellectual or emotional wrestling or even agony that sometimes comes with difficult decisions? Is there some way we can make a step change in our capability to make difficult decisions well?

What is a difficult decision? It may be about policy or operational choices, the management of people, the commitment of financial resources or the time committed to different activities. It might be about the balance between short-term and long-term consequences. It could be decisions that affect nobody other than ourselves or decisions which influence a wide range of different people.

Sometimes our decisions have no consequences other than for today. Sometimes the decisions which we think are just about today have consequences over a long period. When the Iroquois made a decision, they said, ‘How does it affect seven generations in the future?’ They were steeped in history and recognised that decisions taken today had outcomes for many years ahead.

Principles of decision-making

Whatever the nature of the decision you or your organisation is taking, the principles of good decision-making are the same. It is all about:

• clarity: utter objectivity about the issue, the context and the consequences;

• conviction: the place of intuition, values and trained judgement;

• courage: turning belief into action to build next steps;

• communication: embracing listening, engaging and persuading.

The heart of good decision-making is balancing clarity and conviction. It is the interplay between analysis and beliefs, logical thinking and the ‘gut’ reaction that is at the heart of how we make decisions. Courage and communication are then essential elements in being decisive, taking forward difficult decisions effectively and getting the business done.

Our ability to make decisions depends on our own self-understanding and how we handle ourselves when making decisions. We need to know when we are good at making decisions and when we are in danger of being less effective because of blinkering, avoidance, vulnerability or even fear. Understanding our own strengths and weaknesses is essential to our being able to improve our ability to make good decisions and move on. Understanding the way other people make decisions provides an important input, especially those people whose styles and preferences are very different to our own.

These four elements of clarity, conviction, courage and communication apply just as readily to strategic or short-term decisions, to work or personal choices and to addressing life choices about our use of time and energy. Developing the capability to make decisions well in one area of our lives can enhance our ability to make decisions in other areas of our lives. For example the way we make decisions on the sports field can directly affect our ability to make decisions in the work place.

The aim of this book is to enable the reader to:

• clarify their own thinking about the best way of making difficult decisions;

• view the decision-making of others in a more aware and accurate way so that there is greater understanding of why others reach the decisions they do;

• understand their own preferences and foibles in making difficult decisions;

• be able to take difficult decisions with greater confidence, less personal anguish and worry.

The successful decision maker needs enough self-awareness to see themselves as others see them, to acknowledge their mistakes and not to take themselves too seriously while being fully committed to the decisions they are taking.

The book draws on the experiences of a wide range of people in leadership positions covering both the private, public and voluntary sectors. It covers the perspectives of senior leaders wrestling with financial investment decisions, Permanent Secretaries leading major UK government departments and those with difficult decisions in the justice world including judges, a prison governor and a Chief Constable. It includes senior leaders in educational establishments and hospitals making decisions that affect the long-term future and well being of individuals. It draws on examples of decision-making in the sports world. The examples deliberately come from people of varying degrees of seniority. The issues facing a junior supermarket manager and a government minister may be very different in scale, but will often contain similar dilemmas about facts and feelings with similar time pressures to make quick decisions.

The 4 Cs of clarity, conviction, courage and communication have resonated with leaders facing difficult decisions in a wide range of different sectors including politics, government, financial institutions, education establishments, hospitals, prisons, manufacturing firms and retail organisations. These all are very different spheres but they all require decisions to be made thoughtfully, decisively and often quickly. Finding the balance between clarity and conviction has resonated with every leader I have spoken to as being what good decision-making is all about.

How to use this book

The book can be read from start to finish or used as a resource to address particular issues.

Part 1 of the book addresses the 4 Cs of making difficult decisions. It includes a particular focus on the balance between clarity and conviction where various leaders from different spheres talk thoughtfully about how they have tried to ensure they get that balance right and what they have learnt when they got it wrong.

Part 2 looks at taking forward key aspects of making difficult decisions addressing:

• applying the learning from good decision makers: which looks at the experience of role models in decision-making;

• embedding the ability to make difficult decisions: which is about learning effectively from our experience;

• enabling others to make difficult decisions: which is about enabling individuals and teams to have the courage, confidence and resources to make choices effectively;

• key questions in making difficult decisions: if we are able to ask the right questions it helps making difficult decisions more manageable.

Part 3 addresses making difficult decisions in particular circumstances. It sets out practical steps which aim to provide a stimulus for deciding what action to take. It considers the following areas:

• making difficult decisions as the boss: this includes introducing better decision-making into your senior team, changing the values of your organisation, taking a decision when your senior team have differing views, moving senior members out of your team and being compelled to readdress an issue;

• making difficult decisions in relation to your boss: this covers enabling your boss to face up to a decision they are ducking, influencing your boss to make a decision in support of your favoured approach, holding firm when your boss is demanding an immediate decision, and rebuilding a relationship after a difference of view on a decision;

• making difficult decisions in relation to your peers: this includes persuading a peer that the decision they are moving towards is wrong, building support from colleagues for a decision you want to take, building a wider network which will enable decisions to be made more effectively in the future, and building a relationship with peers which provides a framework for future decision-making;

• dealing with your hopes and fears: this includes handling a situation where you are indecisive, facing a decision you do not like taking, recovering from a wrong decision, and holding firm when courage fails you;

• addressing values and priorities: this includes guarding against difficult decisions sapping energy, coping when work and personal priorities are at odds with each other, or work and personal values are at odds with each other, and the balancing of long- and short-term personal priorities.

Your reflections on decision-making

My hope for you is that reflecting on these elements of clarity, conviction, courage and communication will give you the stimulus to be bolder in your decision-making while being rooted in your own values. I hope it will help you move to another place when making choices, which brings together your rational capabilities, your emotional awareness and your personal values and priorities. If you are able to make just one choice better, then it will have been worth your investment of time reflecting on clarity, conviction, courage and communication.

My hope is that you will get into a rhythm which works for you in making decisions. Some decisions you will take semi-automatically while others will involve careful thought and discussion. Some will need to be taken in five minutes while others might take months.

The best leaders do not get it right all the time. Great leaders look back and learn from their mistakes. They avoid a long-term sense of failure and attach no stigma to learning through failure. They sit it out without destroying themselves with self-blame. They learn from decisions with small consequences and then test out decisions on a wider platform. The best of leaders learn to wait. There is a right timing for decisions. Sometimes it is best to wait for time to pass and attitudes to change. Sometimes that can be an excuse for inaction. The skill is getting this balance right.

Decision-making should not always be easy or straightforward. If it is, there may be something missing. Continually testing your decision-making against the facts, your intuition, your values and the perspective of colleagues, customers and critics is a tough but necessary step in refining your ability to make difficult decisions.

When you feel uneasy about a decision it may not be because you are a bad decision maker. It may be that you have missed out a key factor. It is worth asking: why do I feel unsettled about a decision? It might be because it is outside your comfort zone, it parallels difficult decisions in the past, another strand needs to be explored, or it is inconsistent with values and principles which are important to you.

Sometimes in our desire to prove ourselves to be able to make decisions we try to make every decision, much to the dismay of our staff and our families. Being good at decision-making is sometimes about letting others make decisions and living happily with the outcome of those decisions.

We can become better incrementally at making difficult decisions through fine tuning our ability to use facts and feelings well, but decision-making should never become too easy if we are to use our gifts of intellectual, emotional, physical and spiritual awareness to the best possible effect. So be ready to enjoy and not be daunted by the decisions you need to take.

Peter Shaw CB, Pall Mall, London, January 2008

Part 1

The 4Cs of making difficult decisions

This section of the book covers the four key strands of clarity, conviction, courage and communication and illustrates a set of practical steps in respect of each theme.

These themes cover:

• clarity: ensuring objectivity about the issue, the context and the circumstances;

• conviction: bringing intuition, values and trained judgement;

• courage: turning belief into action to build next steps;

• communication: continually listening, engaging and persuading.

It looks at the interrelationship between clarity and conviction drawing from the experience of leaders in a wide variety of contexts suggesting an approach to balancing these different dimensions and then looks in turn at each theme.

In working through the 4Cs questions might be:

• Do the 4Cs ring true for me?

• How good am I at getting the balance right between clarity and conviction?

• How do I assess my courage and ability to communicate effectively in taking difficult decisions?

• How do I want to strengthen my capabilities in each area?

• Do I think the 4Cs miss out any crucial areas?

Chapter 1

Balancing clarity and conviction

At the heart of effective decision-making is balancing clarity and conviction. The natural starting point for different individuals will be at different points on this spectrum. What can we learn from the experience of others in balancing clarity and conviction and how can we develop an approach in ourselves which takes forward the best of both dimensions?

This chapter looks at various perspectives on the balance between clarity and conviction and then sets out an illustrative set of questions to help weigh up the balance between clarity and conviction applicable in a wide range of situations.

The stark reality

How often have you been faced with making a decision on the basis of limited evidence? You are balancing facts and your sense of the right next steps. It could be one of the following scenarios.

• You have a purchasing decision to make. You have weighed up all the evidence but you are uncomfortable about the organisation which comes out top on the factual analysis.

• You have a recruitment decision to make and are confident that one candidate is the best candidate although you cannot be precise about why this person feels so much better than the other candidates.

• You have a decision to make about whether to send a critical e-mail. You feel emotionally that a message needs to be sent. Do you hold back and reassess the facts in the cold light of day before you finally decide whether or not to send the e-mail?

• You have a major strategic decision to make about the use of resources. You have loads of documentation, but you are in danger of not seeing the wood for the trees. Your gut instinct is clear, but is there a risk that you go with your gut instinct when working hard through the analytic data is the right next step.

These decisions are of different orders of magnitude. The recruitment and strategic resourcing decisions will have major long-term consequences. The e-mail may be the cause of short-term angst but with no long-term consequences. Yet in a busy day your mind may be moving from one type of decision to another. Some may seem more difficult than others during the day, while at 4am the relativities might seem very different.

For all of these decisions there is an oscillation between facts and feelings. There are elements of clarity and elements of conviction bouncing up against each other in your brain. So how do you balance clarity and conviction in a wide range of different contexts?

Smart choices

In their book entitled Smart Choices: A Practical Guide to Making Better Life Decisions, (Broadway Books, New York, 1999) Hammond, Keeney and Raiffa talk of effective decision-making processes fulfilling six criteria:

• It focuses on what is important;

• It is logical and consistent;

• It acknowledges both subjective and objective factors and blends analytical with intuitive thinking;

• It requires only as much information and analysis as is necessary to resolve a particular dilemma;

• It encourages and guides the gathering of relevant information and informed opinion;

• It is straightforward, reliable, easy to use and flexible.

The authors see addressing these criteria as relevant for decisions that are either major or minor. They suggest eight keys to effective decision-making:

1. Work on the right decision problem.

2. Specify your objectives.

3. Create imaginative alternatives.

4. Understand the consequences.

5. Grapple with your trade-offs.

6. Clarify your uncertainties.

7. Think hard about your risk tolerance.

8. Consider linked decisions.

The authors set out a very rational approach dealing with a range of different practical decisions. Their thrust is on as much objectivity as possible with personal preference only playing a limited part. The difficulty is that sometimes it is not possible to systemise decision-making in the way advocated in the book. But the eight keys above provide a helpful starting point.

Living with reality

This section records the perspective of three leaders from very different worlds about living with reality. Nicky Munroe, a former Director General within the Scottish Executive, talks about coping with decision-making in a situation which is neither orderly nor straightforward and where decisions are messy and only partial information is available. Her perspective is,

‘The leader has to be increasingly good at coping with ambiguity. The first time a major decision has to be handled which is not straightforward you can feel a bad leader. But everyone is going to hit these hard situations. In a world of ambiguity, leadership is about having to take difficult decisions in difficult situations. It is right to take account of a mix of rational and emotional factors.’

Sometimes the focus has to be at the clarity end. Lord Justice John Thomas, a senior High Court Judge, talks of being very careful about ‘gut feelings’. His perspective is,

‘Gut feelings are often wrong. You need to think them through very carefully. Setting aside thinking time is important. Never make a decision when cross. I think better under pressure: you need to understand in what circumstances you think in the most effective way. When I have difficult decisions to take I like to talk to people and by articulating things you illustrate what the problem is. Look at the upsides and downsides: what is the downside of taking a particular decision. Always sleep on it: this perspective is a product of seeing lawyers make hasty decisions and then regret it. Work out how you are going to put over a decision: see how it is going to operate practically. You need courage to face your people and explain the difficult decisions. In many cases you may think that they will want to be critical, but if you talk to them they will listen. If you don’t face them they will grumble and the issues will get out of proportion.’

Chris Banks from his perspective as a senior executive in the food and drink industry readily acknowledges that instinct does play a big role. His perspective is people in business are paid to act on their own judgement and to make decisions, he recognises the danger of individuals using data that supports their conclusions. Chris sees the good organisation trying to slow down decision-making to enable managers to ask better questions in order to get below inbuilt prejudices. He sees the merits of decisions by many companies spending time retraining people to reduce their prejudices. His perspective is that,

‘An important issue is your mental model for decision-making: you need to make quick judgements in many businesses, so you need to be trained so that you are clear what mental model you are using.’

Balancing clarity and conviction where information is partial