BGA | BUSINESS IMPACT
A centipede was happy – quite! Until a toad in fun, Said, "Pray, which leg moves after which?" This raised her doubts to such a pitch, She fell exhausted in the ditch, Not knowing how to run.
Know your crew Flying aeroplanes used to be the business of the captain, assisted by his first officer and – in days gone by – the flight engineer. In the past 50 years, however, the aviation sector has redefined what constitutes a crew. Today, flight attendants, dispatchers, fuellers, loaders, gate agents, and ground crews can all provide information that is unavailable in the cockpit. Although the captain remains in charge of decisions, in the modern age one of their critical responsibilities is to decide whom to consult and when to do so, to make the optimum decision. Yet if safety is paramount in aviation, so is punctuality. More engagement is not necessarily better than less, as it can waste time. For a captain, as for business leaders, consulting everybody is impossible and would result in analysis paralysis. Literally and metaphorically, the plane would never leave the runway. Researching our book, Solvable , we quizzed senior executives about how they approached daily dilemmas. Most problems can be solved in five minutes if you know how to handle them. Yet many of even the brightest and most expert businesspeople often struggle with analysis paralysis. The first step is learning to distinguish between the two types of stakeholder. Place your stakes Like the captain above, it is the responsibility of leaders to decide whom to consult and when to do so to make the optimum decision. First you need to sort all your stakeholders into the following groups: • Core stakeholders are the people co-solving the problem with you, and those with formal decision-making power on the process or its outcome. They include the people responsible for making the decision – those who ‘own the problem’. • Other key stakeholders are the people who aren’t actively involved in the solution process but who are impacted by it or who can influence its success. Again, like our captain, you have a finite amount of time so you should treat the two groups differently. You might be more proactive with core stakeholders, listening more than you speak, and affording them more time to convey any ideas or concerns. When it is your turn to speak, ensure you share not just what you propose to do, but also why you propose to do it, so your core stakeholders understand the rationale behind your decisions. Assign powers Another useful tactic is to be discriminating when it comes to assigning powers. Think about your stakeholders and allocate them powers commensurate with the typical value of their contribution. Avoid equating value with seniority; you will know a number of junior colleagues who make vital contributions and some senior ones who offer less useful input. Afford your stakeholders
The Centipede’s Dilemma Katherine Craster
Have you ever wondered how ‘analysis paralysis’ might afflict your personal life if you allowed it to? If business leaders tolerated as much dither at home as we are exposed to daily in organisations, our lives would be a shambles, mired in indecision. Like our centipede, we’d get nowhere. We encounter dilemmas every minute of our lives. Yet, so mundane are most of the decisions we make, our brains automatically do the work for us, short-circuiting the process and employing ‘System 1 Thinking’ – using our instinct. It doesn’t matter what shade of black our socks are that morning. Nor does the perfume or aftershave we select matter; we wouldn’t own it we disliked it. As for those requests we need to respond to before our back- to-back meetings, we probably don’t dwell on whether to reply by calling, texting or emailing. Thanks to our brains’ ability to short-circuit the analysis stage, we just do it. Were we to do a full cost-benefit analysis of these prosaic dilemmas, we’d struggle to leave the house each day. System 1 Thinking is useful as it allows us to remove decision-making, run on autopilot and save energy for the dilemmas that really matter. By contrast, organisations frequently get bogged down in analysis paralysis, sometimes even for the smallest matters. It is not unknown for departments to spend weeks debating the merits of three near-identical designs of business cards, while commissioning routine office furniture replacement can take months, cost thousands, and involve several members of the C-suite. In seeking the perfect answer to everyday questions, global businesses can waste thousands of hours and dollars on internal decisions that never encounter a single customer. Now consider decisions that do matter. Some industries – for example, aviation, where safety is paramount – have high levels of consultation in their processes. This is, on balance, welcome. Partly through greater consultation, commercial flying has transmogrified from being dangerous and glamorous to being boring and safe.
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