Decision Making… Dictators & Committees May 24, 2006
Posted by FluxBlogger in : Uncategorized , 4commentsThe effectiveness of any business change programme is wholly dependent upon one key aspect working well – decision making…
Tell me something new you say, but its an often forgotten and overlooked component as we rush to put in place change frameworks and architecture.
Without effective decision making our programmes stagnate at key decision points, momentum is lost and regression takes place.
This issue is exacerbated in the public sector as drivers such as duty of care and investment assurance drive elongated exercises to ensure the decision is 100% right and public money is guarded.
The best private sector approaches involve an openess around admitting that only 70% of decisions will be right but the important factor is to make them or lose the opportunity.
A recent comparison between two large change programmes, one an exemplar of delivery and one a case study in what can go wrong brought out the governing difference of control.
In the exemplar the buck stopped with two key figures who had delegated authority to make all decisions, in the failure a proliferation of boards (the new word for that anathema the committee) and panels existed to ensure consensus was gained.
Its always going to be a difficult decision between developing an informed dictatorship or senate approach but in either its a quick win to take the pruning knife to the decision making process to pare it back to what is really necessary for effective governance…