How to Make a Decision in the Toughest Situations?

How to Make a Decision in the Toughest Situations?

It is easy to be paralyzed for decision makers when they are forced to make a decision in very tough situations, especially in those where they have understood all the facts and done all the analysis, but still cannot figure out what to do. Badaracco (2016) encourages managers to use 5 practical questions to tackle very tough decisions:

1. WHAT ARE THE NET, NET CONSEQUENCES of all my options? Open your mind and put aside the initial assumption about what should be done, assemble a panel of trusted advisers and experts, and consider together with them every course of available actions and their consequences in the real-world, thoroughly and analytically. Meanwhile, it could be very useful to have a second pair of eyes to question your thinking and preventing you from rushing to conclusions or falling into the trap of group-thinking.
2. WHAT ARE MY CORE OBLIGATIONS? Step out of the comfort zone, put yourself in the shoes of all stakeholder groups, especially the most disadvantaged ones, and identify your biases and blind spots. The best way of doing that is speaking directly to the people who will be affected by your decision, or ask someone to role-play the stakeholders or outsiders as persuasively as possible.
3. WHAT WILL WORK IN THE WORLD AS IT IS? After considering the consequences and duties, now you need to think about practicalities – which of your possible solutions to the problem is most likely to work? To answer this question, managers can do a stakeholder analysis and evaluation to understand the power or force of each party, and then choose out the most resilient solution based on the analysis.
4. WHO ARE WE? This question requires managers to step back and think about the decision they made from lens of its relationships with and values for the team, the organization, and a broader community. Just imagine you are writing a paragraph in your organization's history, which solution you might choose could best reflect what your organization stands for?
5. CAN I LIVE WITH MY DECISION? Good managers commit to, act on, and live with the consequences of their choice. So the decision you made must reflect what you really care about as a manager and a human being. Writing down your decision and the reasons for it allows you to think more clearly over it.

Making tough decisions is the responsibility that managers cannot escape from. When you have to make a sensible decision in a tough situation, your job isn't finding solutions; it's creating them with your judgment.

⇒ Do you have any further particular idea on having better judgment in tough situations?

Source: Badaracco, J. (2016). How to Tackle Your Toughest Decisions. Harvard Business Review, 94 (September), pp.103 - 107.

		Comments Sort by date Sort by rating Rating
		5 Doaa Saayed Professor, Lebanon
	Managers Taking Decisions Alone Very good ideas. The problem is that sometimes managers don't share ideas for the reason that they a... Sign up

		3 Damon Farfan Manager, United States
	Making a Tough Decision or Making a Decision in a Tough Situation I think you make good points to be used for developing a decision making filter to facilitate making... Sign up

		3 Ben Mawson-Mole, United Kingdom
	Level of Authority / Chance of Being Overruled This is a good check-list, with a good explanation. I'd like to follow up on from @Doaa Saayed's co... Sign up

		4 Shuma Negeri Manager
	Making a Tough Decision > Advice your Immediate Boss Points presented are very interesting. I would like to add one point: the manager shall not forget t... Sign up

		6 CLAUDIUS RWODZI HR Consultant, Zimbabwe
	Tenants of Tough Decision Making Decision making is a critical function of every leader, especially tough ones. Sometimes decisions ... Sign up

		2 Josephat Olwal Ngesah Kenya
	Decision Making in Tough Situations I like the topic. Maybe we should give examples of tough situations or categorize them since there c... Sign up

		6 Jaap de Jonge Editor, Netherlands
	What is a 'Tough' Decision? @Josephat Olwal Ngesah: Agree, a very good way to categorize "decision making environments" is imo t... Sign up

		3 Damon Farfan Manager, United States
	'Tough' Decision Defined @Jaap de Jonge: Very good point. One of the biggest challenges in decision making is objectively eva... Sign up

		4 Andrew Blaine Business Consultant, South Africa
	Deciding in Writing The topic, and initial list of points of assistance, are both of great value. May I suggest one othe... Sign up

		2 David Wilson Manager, Canada
	When Managers Ignore Stakeholders What do you do when a key stakeholder does not agree with your decisions? If you ignore the stakehol... Sign up

		3 Chloe Xu Director, Australia
	McKinsey's Five Principles of Decision Making in Uncertain Times The timeline for companies to react has shrunk dramatically. Alexander, De Smet, and Weiss of McKins... Sign up

		2 Yzack Consultant, Niger
	Decisions in the Toughest and Emergency Situation Great approach of McKinsey! But the reality is that tough decisions are often made tough by the tim... Sign up

		2 Jaap de Jonge Editor, Netherlands
	Decisions in the Toughest Situations and Urgency @Yzack: Let's keep this discussion focussed on how to approach the TOUGHEST decisions. Taking URGEN... Sign up

		3 Helen Strong Business Consultant, South Africa
	Mitigating Actions for Negative Consequences of Tough Decisions Tough decisions are often related to someone or certain stakeholders being disadvantaged by the solu... Sign up

		1 Harm Hoeksema Student, Netherlands
	Making no Tough Decision can be Worse Often not making the tough decision is worse than either options.... Sign up

		0 Melchiorre Calabrese Business Consultant, Italy
	Managers Taking Decision Alone It's true that there may be extremely tough problems. But in that case they are not REAL managers. ... Sign up

		0 Gregory Johnson Coach, United States
	Tough Decisions In all fairness, decision-making is a process. Whether they are tough or not is inconsequential; it'... Sign up

		2 Anonymous
	Tough Decisions in Healthcare Management I have been in healthcare decision making roles for the past 47 years. Most of the tough decisions i... Sign up

		1 Peter Lindvall Business Consultant, Sweden
	Tough in Cynefin Framework @Jaap de Jonge: I was also thinking about the Cynefin framework when I read the post and some commen... Sign up

		1 Jaap de Jonge Editor, Netherlands
	Where is 'Toughest' in the Cynefin Framework? @Peter Lindvall: Thanks for joining the discussion. I agree the toughest (not just tough!) si... Sign up

		4 Maurice Hogarth Consultant, United Kingdom
	Taking a Very Tough Decision Assuming that the decision is required and within the authority of the individual, and that they mus... Sign up

		-1 Joe Stasio Business School Marketer, United States
	Time Element in Toughest Decisions @Yzack: Time is always a factor and an important one. I like the saying in boxing, "Forget strategy,... Sign up

		2 Jaap de Jonge Editor, Netherlands
	Toughest Decisions are not Requiring Immediate Action @Joe Stasio: Thanks for sharing your view. I disagree with you. The toughest decisions as discussed ... Sign up

		1 Maurice Hogarth Consultant, United Kingdom
	Time to Think Tough(est) @Joe Stasio: Hmmm! I was on the training edges of two extremely "tough" decisions that took the two ... Sign up