A RAPID Way To Make Better Decisions
What’s the most effective way of making a decision? Be decisive and you will prosper. Get it wrong and you get paralysis.
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I first wrote this post back in October 2022. It was one of the first posts I sent on Substack but it feels more relevant than ever. At the time there were just 20 people reading Never Stop Learning and now there are 1,600 of you lovely people so it feels like it needs to find you and help you with your decisions. Enjoy.
One of the most important tasks in an organisation is the task of making decisions. I’ve worked in organisations that employ different models and approaches. During this time I’ve seen it done well and I’ve seen it done badly!
So what does it mean to make good decisions?
How do you know if you’ve made a good decision?
What does a good decision look like?
Do you need to wait to see the outcome to decide whether it was a good decision?
Above all, we need to distinguish between a good decision and a good decision making process. A good decision making process can produce a bad decision. It’s how the organisation reacts to that bad decision that is most important.
In this post:
The ingredients of good decision making.
An example of a model for making good decisions - RAPID
How an organisation should react when things go wrong.
The ingredients of good decision making
High input, low democracy
I don’t believe organisations should be democracies. Maybe that’s controversial but let me explain. I’m talking here about the specific task of making decisions.
There are always a myriad of views, interests and feelings around a specific decision. It’s important to take on those views but ultimately there needs to be one person to make the decision who is able to balance all of those views, the overall company strategy and how the decision will impact the wider stakeholder groups.
I’ve been there in meetings where everyone in the room feels they have a legitimate veto on the decision being made. This simply results in paralysis and ultimately an unproductive organisation.
Below I’ve set out the RAPID approach to decision making that can help with balancing all these views.
Listening
The best leaders I’ve seen seek out views of the team first before giving their views. I’ve also seen examples of the opposite where the team leader comes into a brainstorm meeting and immediately gives their views. In this situation, the team tended to fall in line with the view of that leader. This approach can significantly curtail innovation and diversity of thought. In some circles this could be called “groupthink”.
Don’t do that!
So if you’re a leader, listen first, take in what is being said and then air your views before making a decision.
Ensure that analysis is proportional to the risk
Amazon talk about one way and two way door decisions.
One way being irreversible decisions. This could be a decision to close a factory or sell a particular part of your business. Once done, there is no going back.
For two way door decisions, you know you can rein in on the change if things start to go awry.
An example here might be a new product or marketing channel. By keeping close to project as it’s rolled out you can make quick decisions to reverse a change. However, the pitfall you can fall into with a two way door decision is reigning in just before it’s about to become a success.
With one way door decisions you have to stay the course!
So there is a clear difference in the level of scrutiny that a one way and two way door decision needs. Identifying those two way door decisions can enable you to be faster and more decisive with your decision making which should be very liberating for an organisation.
Be Decisive
With the above points you should be a in a good place to make a decision. The key now is to make that decision quickly and decisively.
Just get on with it.
RAPID: A useful model for making good decisions
An alternative framework that could work for you is RAPID (Recommend, Agree, Perform, Input, Decide).
RAPID was Developed by Bain and Co and is designed to bring clearer decision making to your organisation.
What you must do before you apportion roles is to clearly define the decision. The roles should then flow from there.
R - Recommend
The Recommend group are the people the Decide person turns to for profession expertise. Ideally this is a diverse group covering different viewpoints. Again, they should be made aware that they aren’t there to Decide and are there to provide their expert opinion in a clear and concise way. Their information should be fed into the decision process at the right level of detail. This is a skill in itself.
A - Agree
The people in the Agree group have a specific remit to check against. This might be a lawyer to check that a decision isn’t going to get your organisation into hot legal waters. Or it might be your data team checking that you are compliant with personal information laws. It’s for items that have a narrow focus.
What the Agree people need to know (and be told!) is that they don’t have an overall Agree remit. They Agree/Disagree on their narrow field and then have just a Recommend role for the rest of the decision at best.
P - Perform
The Perform people are those who will ultimately have to carry out the activity once the decision has been made. It is often a good idea for these people to have a Recommend role too so that they feel engaged. At the very least it should be an Input role.
I - Input
This group provide information or analysis but not a recommendation. This is often objective analysis to help the Decision maker.
D - Decide
The most important person has the D. The Decide. They have the power and authority to make the decision. Not a group but one person who has the final say. They can delegate that authority. That’s fine. But it needs to be a clear individual who can say yay or nay.
Using this RAPID model allows a clear set of roles to be defined along with one person who has the power to decide. This will enable the decision to be made with all the information present. But things can still go wrong…..
How an organisation should react when things go wrong!
Primarily, as long as the above steps were taken there is no such thing as a bad decision, but things can still go wrong of course. No decision is risk free. It’s impossible to make decision with hindsight so a good organisation will accept the situation and ensure there are adequate processes in place to learn for next time.
A good organisation will see “failure” as a learning opportunity and put processes in place to ensure that learning happens.
However, many organisations simply move on to the next big thing and some even forget to check whether the project delivered it’s expected benefits! These organisations miss a massive opportunity to learn for next time.
Making decisions quickly and effectively is crucial for all organisations.
How do you make decisions?
What do you think is holding back your organisation from making better decisions?
Are you frustrated by decision makers dwelling too long on decisions?
Or are you just confused as to who the decision maker actually is?!
We’d love to hear your thoughts on how you and your organisations make decisions. Feel free to drop a line in the comments below.
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Finding great articles on Substack can be difficult. Fear not, I have been digging deep into the discovery areas of the platform so you don’t have to.
Here are my top three posts to read this week:
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My immediate thoughts and reflections. Not all decisions a created equal. The decision is not always clear. It is inevitable bound by our own understanding and previous success or failure with such decisions (even if we made them or not)… Then there’s the other lovely insights from corporations, you could have the authority to make a decision but not the resources to execute it.
“The ingredients of good decision making
High input, low democracy”
💯 Martin. And might I add—lacking in today’s business culture.