Understanding Decision Making in Organizations to Focus Its Practices Where It Matters

The ability to make good decisions is the defining attribute of a high performance organization. The challenge is to ensure that good decision making practices permeate the entire organization. As organizations grow, employees make decisions in an increasingly complex, ambiguous, and uncertain environment. Formal practices enable employees to make decisions that are meaningful to the firm’s stakeholders and guide their behaviors to align with the strategic intent of the firm as well as its values and norms. This paper describes a diagnostic tool which helps companies understand how well their management systems support decision making and where CEOs should invest to focus leadership time and attention.