When should a decision be qualified as strategic for you ? ..... when 3 conditions are met : loneliness, uncertainty, irreversibility.
1) Loneliness:
Only you can make it. This soon-to-be-made decision is at your very level of authority. You can't delegate it, you cannot share the responsibility with anyone else. People can help you with recommendations and advices but ultimately, you will decide.
2) Uncertainty:
There is no way to know what the actual impact of the decision will be. Assumptions can be made, analysis can be performed, and scenarios can be established, no more than that. And you obviously have no way to explore the other options, because you are in once place and one time only.
3) Irreversibility:
It won't be possible to come back to the previous status once the decision is made. You will not be able to come back to as it were before, because just while you test your decision to see if it works, something changes. Resources are consumed in the testing process: time, money, manpower, that cannot be claimed back. The environment changes as soon as you make your decision and announce it: the competition and the market react to what you decided, announced and did.
Process
In any strategic decision, there are three process phases: before the decision, the decision itself, and after the decision.
Before is the time for analysis and consulting. Be serious and methodical. However, there is no need to postpone the decision too far (hoping to get better information), simply because not deciding is already a decision.
At the time of deciding, there is a decision maker, his/her subjective perceptions, his/her feeling and convictions, his/her stress. His/her coach ?
After the decision is made, comes the time for action, implementation, comfortably back to the world of rational thinking.
Games people play around decision-making processes:
Here is a little collection of power Games you may be faced with, in the corporate jungle.
- to make a decision outside of one's authority
- to criticize a decision made through a healthy process
- to black-mail or threaten a decision maker to influence the decision
- to announce a decision with no intention to implement it
May you be wise enough to spot them before entering them!
Want to effectively fool others or yourself about a given strategic decision?
Why would anyone do that ?
Simply to face the anxiety of uncertainty.
Human, isn't it?
Here are two excellent statements to this purpose:
Statement A: This is THE good decision
Bad news for you, the good strategic decision does not exist. The only strategic decision that exists is the one you make. Once made, you commit all your resources to implement it and get the best you can out of it. The final result is surely influenced by your actions, but also by the environment's reaction. And, remember, there is no way to know if you may or may not have got more.
Statement B: This is a RATIONAL decision
Weeeellll...the decision what made with a partial lack of information and was made by a human being, with his/her personality, history, with the result of his/her previous strategic decisions, and hopefully a few feelings. You know what ? This is the very difference between the noble art of strategic decision and the mechanical activity of choice! A choice can be rational, not a strategic decision.
So, definitely, strategic decisions are not rational. However, if you are good sport, let your illusions go and accept a degree of uncertainty, then you can surely make more conscious decisions.
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