Decision making – its not brain surgery, or is it…?
In my car this morning I picked up a radio show discussing the process of decision making. One of the guest panel was Henry Marsh is Consultant Neurosurgeon at Atkinson Morley’s/St George’s Hospital in London.
It got me thinking about the difference between the decisions we make in business as distinct from a brain surgeon’s perspective with a life in front of them.
Marsh described how normally with brain surgery you make decisions as the operation evolves, however with the stakes being higher than most peoples average time scale to make a decision he questioned whether this was the right moment. His team would not necessarily challenge his decision whilst the operation was taking place. The review afterwards they would freely comment on whether they thought he had made the right decisions. He decided the feedback needed to be before the operation and the decisions needed to be thought out pre the procedure.
Think about your team and your leadership style and work out a decision making process that works for you:-
- Making decisions whilst surgery is happening or before operation.
- Hard wired to make decisions that are literally life or death
- Behaviour conditioning – empowering members of the team to give you feedback on your decisions
- Decisions in the moment when the moment counts
- Reviewing decisions and accepting the feedback
- Extremes exploring alternatives start wide moving to narrow
- In the moment before the moment
For a decision making workshop contact bev@nuggetsoflearning.co.uk
