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Change Management
~ Making Conscious Decisions
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By
Kevin Dwyer
Leaders make two types of
decisions. They are either conscious decisions or unconscious decisions. The
former are traits of true leaders the latter are traits of phoney leaders.
Conscious decisions are made with the data at hand the risks understood and
the implications of the risk known with possible contingencies built into
the decision. Conscious decisions are made despite the risk or at times
because of the potential reward that goes with the risk.
Taking conscious decisions does not always require courage but undoubtedly
at times it does. Taking a conscious decision to go against the trend, to go
against advice because you know that it is right and the consequences will
be personal takes courage.
Too often the courage is missing. Instead of deciding what to do having
understood the risk, conscious “Decisions” are made to defer a decision.
These decisions have a flip side, the unconscious decision. It is the
unconscious decision that people see and follow.
The committee chairman who habitually refers even the most minor matters to
review by a sub committee even when all the data is present, makes an
unconscious decision to be completely risk averse and delays potential
benefits of the decision.
In addition, the organisation is prevented from gathering data about the
impact of the decision to refine it with experience. If failure is possible,
I would rather fail quickly and knowingly than slowly and obliviously.
If the committee chairman is someone senior as is the case in most
circumstances, the other members of the committee will also learn to be risk
averse.
 The leader who does not complete the performance appraisal on time is making
an unconscious decision that performance appraisals are not important. Given
that there is between a month and a year to plan appraisal and feedback
sessions, postponing them or missing them all together is a signal of their
lack of importance.
Missing them twice is a red flashing light that may be interpreted not only
as a lack of importance of the process but what the leader thinks about the
individual. The unconscious decision appears so clear it may be seen as an
conscious decision. Worse still, the leader is unlikely to be told what the
staff thinks. The leader will be oblivious of the impact of their
unconscious decision.
The management team that espouses one set of values on the plaque on the
wall and in the annual report or corporate plan and demonstrates different
values make an unconscious decision that the values are unimportant. No
amount of internal marketing, cajoling or disciplining of staff will make
them believe that the values are important.
When leaders discipline staff for not displaying the values that they
themselves do not demonstrate an unconscious is decision is made that the
important thing is to have the appearance of alignment with the values.
Human beings are the most creative animals on the planet. They will work out
a way of not being disciplined and not placing any importance on the values.
The marketing manager who has qualitative, quantitative data and risk
management plan to support a
 decision to introduce a radical new product
which will change the shape of the market and anger competitors and decides
to complete more analysis is making an unconscious decision to maintain the
status quo. An unconscious decision is made to not to be a leader, but to be
a follower.
The impact of these unconscious decisions sometimes can be far reaching.
Market share gains are foregone. Income is foregone. The ability to reinvest
that income is foregone. Brand awareness is foregone.
When leaders make a conscious decision to not discipline a staff member for
a serious breach in company policy because of the potential industrial
backlash, an unconscious decision is made that breaches in company policy
are unimportant.
One reason that many people make these poor unconscious decisions is that
they tend to think to far ahead about their decisions.
 It is good to look five or ten decisions ahead if you can and do contingency
planning around each decision. Developing a decision tree into the future is
a good practice for higher risk projects.
However, each decision must be made on its own. Making one decision with ten
future decisions such as “what will they think?” or “what will they do?” in
mind will inevitably force a conservative mindset and a postponement of the
initial decision. The approach should be to anticipate the decisions which
may need to be made and consciously decide each time on the merits of the
current facts.
Another reason some leaders make a host of decisions where the unconscious
decisions send a much stronger message than the conscious decision is
ignorance. They fail to recognise that weak conscious decisions have a flip
side of strong unconscious decisions. |
