Common Decision-Making Mistakes

When engaged in decision-making, there are many process tools you can use for enabling effective decision-making, but there are also some commonly used ones that are ineffective methods to clear, objective decision-making…

Pros and Cons (Pluses & Minuses, Advantages & Disadvantages, For & Against, Strengths & Weaknesses or any other synonyms)

• Pros and Cons or its synonym, is a common decision-making process used frequently.? When one person is deciding between two or more choices, Pros and Cons work fine, but A pro for one person can be a con for another.? In this situation, one wins by attrition – you wear the other person down.?Example: In selecting a place to live, "an average annual temperature of 72° F" would be a Pro to someone who wanted a moderate climate year-round while it would be a Con to someone who wanted four distinct seasons.
• There is no effective way to compare.? Do you count how many pros versus how many cons?? Are all weighted the same?

Instead – use Objective Criteria – criteria that can be measured and a prioritizing process to decide between the choices.? An alternative for Strengths & Weaknesses is SWOT, but the typical quadrant is ineffective.? Instead use a more analytical method such as the one I wrote about in a previous LinkedIn article – SWOT – A Methodical Approach.

Subjective Criteria

Subjective Criteria is another decision-making process I’ve seen used in companies.? Subjective criteria, e.g., "I like it", "Management Discretion", "Vendor Viability", etc., are meaningless because they mean something different to every person. ?

Example:? I facilitated a company that had to make a choice by a certain date (soon) or they were going to lose out on $3 billion of work.? They were stalemated because half wanted on choice and the other half wanted another.? I found out that they disagreed about a criterion of “Vendor Viability”.? They were going to lose potentially $3 billion of work because of a gut feeling.? I pushed them to define measurable Objective Criteria and define at least 5 more options.? They did and used the Objective Criteria to select.? They chose one of the 5 additional options and were very happy with the win-win.

Instead – use Objective Criteria – criteria that can be measured.

Accepting only Two Choices

Accepting only Two Choices is another situation that leads to poor decisions.? Groups are often presented with having to decide between two choices – this is win-lose no matter how you word it, therefore you lose consensus because some people lose while the others win. ?There are never only two choices.

Instead – use Win-Win – generate as many choices as possible, including off-the-wall choices, and then use Objective Criteria and a prioritizing process to select one out of many.? See the example above for an actual situation.

Dot-Voting (Dotmocracy, Multi-Voting)

Many groups use dot-voting, multiple votes per person.? While this seems to get to a decision, you sacrifice consensus.? This is majority rule, regardless of the number of dots used.? Those who vote for a solution that is not selected, can become upset and can sabotage the decision later.? Use this only when everyone agrees that any selected choice is acceptable.

Instead – use Objective Criteria – criteria that can be measured and a prioritizing process to decide between the choices.

Conclusion

The more objective the decision-making process, the more effective and supportable.? Too often groups take a path of least resistance.? That is problematic and can be a disaster later.? Objective decision-making takes a bit more work but is worth it.

What tools do you use to make important decisions?