You can make more effective decisions when you know what the key elements are. When you make important decisions, there’s a few key factors to keep in mind. For example, you should rationalize and understand the problem itself. You need to know the problem you’re solving. You should also set boundary conditions for the solution. Success is often a spectrum so you should set boundaries so that you don’t limit yourself to something that’s impractical or something that’s impossible.

I found an interesting article about contextual decision making. It’s “A Leader’s Framework for Decision Making,” an article in Harvard Business Review. The idea is about tailoring your decision making approach based on the context. You can use the Cynefin Framework to figure out which context you’re operating in, so you can choose the most effective response. The five contexts are simple, complicated, complex, chaotic, and disorder. The key is to determine whether to categorize, analyze, probe or act.

Learning a new problem space can be a challenge. Especially when there’s no map. While writing books for the past several years, I’ve learned a more effective approach for chunking up and solving problem spaces. Each new book is a new problem domain. I can’t afford to churn or be inefficient while ramping up. I’ve basically learned how to get myself and my teams up to speed faster by using a process. This process has served me well. I hope it does the same for you.

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If you know the type of problem you’re dealing with, you can handle it more effectively.  One of the best skills you can master in life is problem solving.  One of the keys to effective problem solving  is knowing what kind of problem you’re dealing with.  For example, is this a unique problem, a pattern of a problem, or an exception?  Knowing the type of problem helps you choose the most effective strategy.  In The Essential Drucker: The Best of Sixty Years of Peter Drucker’s Essential Writings on …

What are four common ways of making decisions?  How do you choose the most effective decision making approach?  In Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When Stakes are High, Kerry Patterson, Joseph Grenny, Ron McMillan, and Al Switzler write about the four most common decision making methods and how to choose the most effective approach.
Key Take Aways Here’s my key take aways:

Don’t use command when you need consensus.  Don’t use command for important decisions that need buy in.  Consensus would be more appropriate.
Use consult to make …

To make more effective decisions, develop disagreement rather than consensus.  Disagreement provides alternatives and makes you think more deeply about the issue.  In fact, if you don’t have disagreement, you’re not ready to make a decision.  In The Essential Drucker: The Best of Sixty Years of Peter Drucker’s Essential Writings on Management, Peter F. Drucker writes about encouraging disagreement rather than consensus to helps make more effective decisions.
Key Take AwaysHere’s my key take aways:

Don’t make a decision unless there’s disagreement.   Find the concerns.  Before you make a decision, first find …