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(U) The Bald Truth: Helping Your Leaders Make Decisions That Stick
(repost)
FROM: Charles H. Berlin III
SID Chief of Staff
Run Date: 06/04/2004
(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 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 well-staffed 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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