Decisioning as a Competitive Advantage

(Highlighted in the last post)

Companies and organizations make decisions daily. Insurance, cars, rent, perks, advertising, technology…and so on. But, in today’s economy, how many are making a conscious decision about decisioning?

As previously posted, we chronicled the BP fiasco right down to the essence of the problem…the lack of decisioning at most every level. In fact, if you will look back at many of our ZDT archived posts, you will find a definite trend. And, because it is so obvious; we have to wonder why it’s being avoided and repeated…almost on purpose.

The time has finally come (and hopefully not too late) for many companies to apply the word how to this often overlooked issue.

The “how,” when applied to objective decision making [decisioning], could completely refurbish worn out and status quo approaches in many of today’s challenges. The trend that we continue to see is not the understanding of the problem, or the ability to come up with some solutions, but the consistent lack of a model of how the process is established and adopted as a standard within the organization.

A key statement from the previous post:

Develop decision making as a core competency
“When you look at successful companies, they all share one common trait…they make good decisions. When you look at mediocre or failing companies, they all seem to have made bad decisions. Yet surprisingly few companies actively cultivate decision making as a skill set for their leaders and managers. When they have, the results have been extraordinary.”

“Improving decision making can even become a competitive advantage”

The steps of what a model might look like, as applied to decisioning, could be as follows:

Is it an opportunity (or problem) area for our company?
How deep is our commitment (or not) to achieve it?
What is the best possible solution (or solutions) in our situation?
What will our specific actions (and accountabilities) be?

Regardless of the particular model that is adopted, the key is to have one, and that it becomes revolutionary in your organization. So, if your competition continues to ignore the importance of a model in objective decisioning, you may have a legitimate competitive advantage. And, if the other companies neglect it long enough, they may no longer be anyone’s competition.