355-2 KiE Basics – Superior Decision

KiE superior decision

Prioritization and decision-making are two fundamentally different processes that are processed in two different decision-making systems in the brain. Everyone can decide with intuition, gut feeling, or consciously with cognition. But prioritization is only achieved with cognition. Prioritization is a complex process and can only be performed consciously by rating each individual option, story or task – usually by importance and objecthood – in order to put it in sequence.

The jointly supported decision is designed to achieve a better solution in the DecisionMaking Process than might have been expected at the beginning.

Basically, there are four types of decision, but each of them is not good enough for business, team or individual decisions. There is the authoritarian decision It is the most common form of decision where one decides and expects the other to execute the decision. It has certain advantages because it is fast and clear. However, the authoritarian decision is rarely supported by others and has rightly fallen out of favour due to abuse of power and ego trips.

The participative decision, tries to involve key players and experts. It has a higher involvement at the expense of speed and clarity. However, the participatory decision remains essentially an authoritarian decision and is ultimately not suitable for today’s challenges.

Then we have consensus decisions and majority decisions. They are also not suitable for entrepreneurial decisions. The consensus decision takes much too long. In addition, in terms of content one usually agrees on the lowest common denominator. The majority decision is somewhat better. Even if it can be produced within a reasonable period of time, it disqualifies itself above all by representing an authoritarian decision for the minority, and this means that majority decisions are not subsequently jointly supported. 

The jointly supported decision merges all functional features and removes the limitations of the other decision forms. To do this, you need to know how to create them in a DecisionMaking process The commitment process involves everyone in a robust approach that is aligned with the human decision-making process. And that in a reliable, predictable time. The expert knowledge of all is incorporated to 100%, because the jointly supported decision makes everyone responsible. Weakening inputs will be regulated by the process itself.

If the participants do not want or are not able to make a jointly supported decision, the process shows how many would support them and what is missing to be supported jointly. A team will increasingly prefer a jointly supported decision to an authoritarian one.  The power of decision-makers can therefore be retained or consciously delegated to the team.

The jointly supported decision is made in 5 steps: It begins with understanding what has to be decided.  A first commitment allows a direct path to the final commitment. Many decisions are indeed clear. Then the reservations that impede a commitment are brought out in a safe process and translated into actions that meet the given objectives. With a final commitment, including the actions, the goal is achieved.

Thus, the jointly supported decision fulfills the claim to achieve a better solution in the process than could have been expected at the start. Fast decisions provoke immediate feedback, which increases the speed in companies and the processes become faster.  This results in agility – as a consequence of jointly supported decisions.

Sources

Graf, Richard. (2018). Die neue Entscheidungskultur: Mit gemeinsam getragenen Entscheidungen zum Erfolg. München: Hanser Verlag.

Youtube: Superior Decision

Spiegel: “Unsere Intelligenz sinkt”