Good individual and group decision-making is key to being a successful leader and driving a successful business forward.  But we are all subject to individual biases (such as Confirmation Bias) and group behaviors (such as Groupthink) that lead to poor decision making.  As leaders then, we need to be Decision Architects who create the processes and culture within our businesses that overcome these biases and behaviors and lead to consistently better decision-making.

“A key task of a leader is, therefore, to be a decision architect who ‘decides how to decide,’ introducing collaboration and process in the organization’s decision practices.”  Olivier Sibony

The Basics of a Solid Decision-Making Architecture

• Assemble the Correct, Small Group to Make the Decision: This group should include those people who are actively involved in doing the work, those who are most affected by the work, and a leader or executive to manage the decision and sign off on it.
• Require a One-Page Decision Memo: This memo will define the decision to be made and the criteria in making the decision, give the pros and cons, and discuss the implications (and possible unintended consequences) of the decision and its implementation.  One page is sufficient to give the highlights and ensure that everyone is on the same page.  One page also ensures that the memo will be written. 
• Consider the Base Rate and History: Consider the historic cost and benefits of similar decisions and the time and effort to implement these previous decisions.  This creates the base rate – an outsider view on how the decision will really pan out instead of the over-optimistic insider view.
• Give the Group Time to Think About the Decision: Send out the One-Page Decision Memo ahead of time and ensure that no decision is final until everyone has agreed and reflected on the decision.  Spur of the moment decisions as often seen in the movies rarely work out; we all need time to process the information (and stew on it) before making an informed decision.
• Lower Ranking Employees Speak First: In any discussion, require reverse hierarchical order for speaking.  This prevents the senior leader from giving their view and everyone else agreeing so as not to go against the leader.  In addition, we need to ensure that everyone gives their point of view.

“Fair process: if people have had a chance to express their point of view and be heard, once the final decision is made, the motivation of all contributors is increased, not reduced.”  W. Chan Kim

• Have a Devil’s Advocate in the Room: This Devil’s Advocate is someone who will seek out contradictory information and argue the opposing viewpoint pointing out the risks and possible downsides of the possible decision.  A Devil’s Advocate is required to prevent motivated reasoning where the leader or the group has already reached a conclusion and all the discussion has the aim, conscious or unconscious, of reaching that predetermined conclusion.
• Require Respect: There can be disagreements.  But all group members must respect each other and their individual points of view.
• Make the Decision: Once we have run through all the elements, we need to decide: do nothing, choose an alternative, or re-evaluate in 6 or 12 months.  To quote the book, Skills for Success

Decisiveness in decision [whether individual or group decisions] is vital.

• Create a Decision-Making Checklist: Use these suggestions as a starter and then build out a decision-making checklist of the processes and behaviors to follow when making group decisions.

Other Elements of a Solid Decision-Making Architecture

• Consider Alternatives: Better decisions are made when evaluating a limited number of options and alternatives and not just a Go / No Go decision.
• Evaluate Key Decisions: Assess and evaluate the decisions by having a formal post-mortem or post-decision review process and keep track of these evaluations.
• Judge Decisions Fairly: Decisions need to be judged by the quality of the decision-making process not by the results.  This is especially true when making risky decisions which have a much higher failure rate.  If we penalize someone for the results of a risky experiment that fails even when the decision-making process was strong, we will implicitly discourage risky decisions or experiments (that could prove valuable in the future).
• Be Honest and Humble: Making decisions under uncertainty is challenging and we certainly will not get them all right.  As leaders we need to be honest when we make mistakes and humble when we achieve success.

Conclusion

By being a Decision Architect, we can create the process and conditions for good individual and group decision-making.  But we cannot stop there.  Good decision-making is a skill and requires constant assessment to see whether we are making good decisions and reflection on how we could have improved the quality of our individual and group decision-making.   A key feature of excellent decision-makers is that they do not try to explain away their decision-making errors rather they use their errors as a ‘source of calibration’ to improve their decision-making process in the future.