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(U) The Bald Truth: Helping Your Leaders Make Decisions that Stick
FROM: Charles H. Berlin III
SID Chief of Staff
Run Date: 03/18/2004
(U) I bet you will agree that we have a problem
with revisiting decisions. It seems like every time
a decision is announced around here, there is a
retraction and a revisit within 24 hrs. Can you relate? I can. Sadly,
I have issued plenty of retractions myself. Honestly, many were
due to my mistakes -- but others were the result of a faulty
decision-making process. Did you ever wonder what causes this
and what we could do about it? Never fear, Dr. Berlin has a
diagnosis and a prescription.
(U) The Symptoms and the Disease
(U) Most leaders have to make decisions in uncertainty.
Uncertainty exists in a lack of knowledge of our current state and a
murky prediction about the future. Still, leaders have to make
decisions anyway -- waiting for perfect information is not a smart
thing to do since it never really arrives. We need to make our
decisions with some lesser amount of information, somewhere
around 70 to 90 percent. But the problem is that we make
decisions with way less than 70 percent, and the equation changes
from a risk to a gamble somewhere around the 50 percent mark.
When the leader feels he is in the gamble region, he is particularly
vulnerable to the nugget virus . That is, when a single nugget of
new information comes in, the leader's confidence in the decision
is shaken and a revisit is in the making.
(U) One reason this happens is the way the leader's immune
system is suppressed by the point solution briefing . Many an
outstanding, up and coming, subordinate can craft up an advocacy
briefing that spells out the efficacy of the answer, the single
answer. Our culture promotes the point solution briefing because
the antibodies to the answer will form early if the idea is
unpopular to the established status quo, so it is best to keep it
quiet and don't even mention the other possibilities lest they spur
on the antibodies (I guess I am overdoing the medical analogy a
bit, but bear with me). Anyway, I often see great ideas literally
sprung on the leadership with no notice. Ever wanting to
encourage innovation, our leaders hate to say no to a good idea
and the decision is made to go ahead (usually with funding and
personnel support to follow - not further specified). As we work out
the details, the nuggets begin to arrive and the inevitable revisit
takes place. We immediately go into the paralysis-by-analysis
mode and everything grinds to a halt. I got the T-shirt on this one.
(U) The Cure
(U) Well the first thing is get the good staff work done in the first
place (odd that a chief of staff would advocate for this, no?). This
means producing the good options brief rather than the evil
point solution brief . The options brief is really an intellectually
honest depiction of the many ways to skin this cat. It usually
SERIES:
The Bald Truth
1. The Bald Truth:
Technical Leadership
2. The Bald Truth: The
Sweet Conspiracy
3. The Bald Truth: P3 &
Promotion Feedback
4. The Bald Truth:
Helping Your Leaders
Make Decisions that
Stick
5. Letters to the Editor:
Helping Your Leaders
Make Decisions that
Stick
6. Letter to the Editor:
Helping Your Leaders
Make Decisions that
Stick
contains, among others, the "do nothing" option, the partial option,
the full option, the cheap option, the opposing organization's
option and the out of the box option. The idea is to present the
landscape of solutions to the decision maker. The options brief lists
the criterion by which the leader would judge the decision and
evaluates the pros and cons of each option according to the
criteria. Criteria could be:
cheaper,
faster,
more efficient,
supports others, etc.
The result is a matrix of options versus criterion that shows the
total picture including resource implications. Please do me a favor:
if there is a resource cost, make a well-staffed recommendation as
to the source of the resource. It is only half a decision if we identify
a need and not the source of satisfaction.
(U) Now, there is a place for advocacy here. At the end of the
options discussion, you are expected to make a staff
recommendation on which of the options you would recommend,
being careful to list the pitfalls and risks for each option. It is also
important to explain why the decision needs to be made now. The
timing of a decision is a legitimate factor in the discussion especially at the strategic level. Be ready to answer the question,
why now? If you are smart and a little bit lucky, your leader will
select an option, decide and move on without looking back.
(U) How does this prescription help your leader make sticky
decisions? Well, it inoculates the decision maker from the nugget
virus . With a good view of the landscape, the leader can evaluate
the impact of the newly arrived nugget. The leader can determine
if the new information is significant enough to warrant a legitimate
re-look or just an insignificant additional piece of data. The wellstaffed options brief keeps your decision maker in the risk regime
and out of the gambling casino. Let's eliminate the unnecessary
revisit with good staff work.
"(U//FOUO) SIDtoday articles may not be republished or reposted outside NSANet
without the consent of S0121 (DL sid comms)."
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