Effective Decision Making By Hishaam Caramanli

What sets excellent organizations apart? What makes one so much more effective than another? What enables their teams to outperform others - and do it consistently over time?

More important, can the excellence of a team or organization be transferred to another - either by products, services, technology or a learning process?

I believe it can.

The key to it is the thinking process itself, how we think as individuals and as teams, how we access and use relevant information and discard the irrelevant and how we build different ideas together to create novel structures and genuine business innovation.

If you look at teams that innovate and perform better, they share certain characteristics. They share a real sense of purpose, a collaborative mission and a creative drive. This goes far beyond conventional mission statements; it combines into a gestalt feeling where everyone is able to sense the direction, rhythm and flow of progress.   

My view is that a great enabler here is having precisely the relevant information you need in one place to make decisions - being able to integrate what you want, where you want it and how you want it to appear  - like having several linked search engine platforms linked together working on your behalf. Of course, even having the right information isn’t enough. You need to be able to use and interpret it, then make creative leaps in an atmosphere where risk and innovation is encouraged.

In our work we have identified three fundamentals that function together to create decision effectiveness from the kind of information we can all possess.

The first of these is speed. If everyone’s having ideas, the team that’s first to make the decision to implement an idea wins. There is no substitute for first place. Effective teams are able to make these decisions at high speed at the same time as minimising risk and errors. This can come from the aggregation of expertise in a specific area, having a track record of success that provides a head of steam around what works and what doesn’t and then, having the confidence to strike.
Second is quality, by which I mean it’s not enough to make fast decisions, they have to be the right decisions that lead to results and in turn to further innovation. Fast, quality decision-making has an exhilarating feel about it. We all refer to this in various ways, like being on a roll, like finding tasks easier and more rewarding.

The third is yield, where the cumulative effects of speed and quality deliver quantifiable results - better products, better service, more profits. Fast, high quality multiple decisions aren’t simply additive; they create a multiplier effect. It’s as if instead of 1 + 1 + 1 = 3, we get 1 x 2 x 3 = 6 for the same thinking effort.

This multiplier effect delivers a synchronicity, a smoothness of flow. This further enhances the process and ensures that the components of the team or organization are all pushing in the same, and the right, direction. Just as shoals of fish or flocks of birds flow together, so a 'decision-effective' team or organization pushes forward, all in the same direction, swirling around obstacles, avoiding predators and making the most efficient use of its energy and environment.

It sounds simple, and like all good ideas, it is.   

It’s founded, as I said earlier, on having precise and relevant information all in one place and on everyone having clearly defined roles and responsibilities in the team. Like the birds in the flock, they fly each on their own, but in perfect harmony with all the others, towards their mutual goals.

What enables this is an environment where thinkers can collaborate, challenge and communicate - ultimately to create. It’s a process that evolves like a human neural network, where the creative power of individuals is multiplied by the energy and effectiveness of those around them. It’s a process that evolves and learns as well. We’ve all discovered the wonderful benefits of a team that works well together and the great results that it delivers.

No matter how powerful our tools and information, no matter how much super crunching we do, humans will always be able to make faster and more effective decisions that yield better results - when we work together in a decision-effective environment.

A case in point is our digital platform, UBS NEO, a direct transfer of our own decision effectiveness into benefits for UBS clients.
Clients gain their own decision effectiveness through the NEO platform as it delivers simplicity and precision through the three fundamentals described above: speed, quality and yield, which are the NEO operating ethos. It’s an example of how innovative thinking in one team can directly transfer innovative thinking to another.

At the end of it, the key word is team. It really is about the human component. Because while the machines and the programs are brilliant in supporting what we need done, determining that is down to people - what you want, what I want, what we mutually want - and how we can help each other to achieve our goals.