Decision-making culture: from decision to joint action

Organisations are communication systems, and their most important communicative event is the decision. In the systems theory sense, a resolution only becomes a decision when it is followed by suitable follow-up decisions. Many resolutions in organisations remain declarations of intent because nothing further is decided afterwards.

How decisions come about shapes the culture. It can be understood as a fabric of rules of the game that are simply there without anyone having explicitly decided on them. Their effect shows when they are disregarded. The more violently the organisation then reacts, the more certain it is that this is a cultural issue. These rules can considerably support or inhibit wise decisions.

Complexity is growing. What one person could oversee alone in the past now challenges even teams of experts. Whether a decision was wise often only becomes clear in hindsight. Added to this are large amounts of data and developments that are fast and hard to see through. Flatter structures carry the risk of chronic upward delegation.

In some companies, the top makes decisions alone and is increasingly overwhelmed by this. Some decision-makers find the major changes difficult and are pushed out of their comfort zone by the growing ambiguity. And many decision-making processes leave out the knowledge that exists in the organisation.

Expertise only benefits the joint decision if it finds its way into the exchange. It is therefore relevant who is involved and under what conditions divergent observations can be voiced.

Under these conditions, it is less about right or wrong decisions than about wise ones. Leadership does not have to have the right answer itself for this. Its task is to ensure that all relevant information from inside and outside the company finds its way into the ongoing communication process. How well this process is designed determines the quality of the decision.

Quality can be observed at two points. Has all the available information, opinions and hypotheses been included? And is the decision supported in the company, so that further decisions are made in its spirit?

Different functions pursue goals that are sometimes contradictory. These differences must be able to become visible and be weighed up. A quick consensus can leave open which conflicts will return later during implementation.

Many decisions involve conflicting goals and paradoxes that overwhelm individuals. A result becomes viable when the team evaluates the different perspectives and reaches a decision despite all differences of opinion. This does not happen by itself. It requires suitable structures, processes, conventions and clarified roles. Equally important is communication behaviour characterised by a balance between push and pull styles.

An agreement based on the exchange of arguments among equals is particularly robust. What is decisive then are the better arguments and not the majority vote. For complex tasks beyond everyday routine, this creates broad commitment among those involved.

Every decision is preceded by an evaluation. People have two fundamentally different systems at their disposal for this. Reason works slowly and thoroughly and follows logic. The emotional experiential memory reacts comparatively quickly with diffuse feelings because it draws on stored experiences. Ideally, both agree. A wise decision comes about when reason, experience and emotions are involved in a balanced way.

The brain remains capable of learning throughout life. Frequently repeated patterns of perception, thought and behaviour solidify into reactions that occur automatically and often unconsciously. New behaviour becomes more stable the more often it is carried out.

A decision needs subsequent tasks and further decisions. Who takes responsibility? What coordination is necessary? How do those involved recognise that implementation is stalling?

A specific decision-making process provides material for further development. Roles, communication and informal expectations are considered together. New routines are tested on real decisions.

A routine question needs different participation from a decision that is new in subject matter or involves conflict. A distinction is made between routine, group, expert and consensus decisions. For the specific case, it is clarified whose knowledge is needed, who participates and who ultimately decides. The appropriate form also depends on how important the quality of the subject-matter solution and acceptance are for implementation.

Smart Decision Culture considers decision culture as an interplay of people and organisational conditions. For a specific decision, one can ask which information was included, who was able to raise objections, how conflicting goals were dealt with and who is responsible for implementation. A formally clear resolution can remain ineffective in everyday work if these points are open.

Those involved therefore also examine how a resolution is communicated and later reviewed. A new routine can first be tested on an important recurring decision. Its effect shows in whether responsibility becomes clearer and whether the organisation learns from divergent results. General statements about the “right” culture do not replace this observation.

In addition to systems theory, Smart Decision Culture draws on findings from neuroscience. This describes the brain as a dynamic, self-organised system of a large number of nerve cells connected in a network via synapses. The neural networks strongly influence psychological processes: how ready a person is to perceive, act and react emotionally, and what motivates them.

The brain works much like a muscle. A network that is no longer used slowly degrades, and the associated behaviour appears less frequently. In learning, new networks arise according to the same principle, leading to changed behaviour and experience. According to Roth, all memory performance is based on experience-dependent changes in the brain, which form the basis of learning.

The brain also evaluates which behaviour benefits or harms psychobiological well-being. In affective evaluation, it draws on the emotional experiential memory. Experiences with objects and situations are stored there together with the associated feelings and bodily sensations. These stored experiences are called somatic markers. They signal within a very short time in the categories good or bad and trigger a corresponding feeling or bodily sensation. There are therefore positive and negative markers.

This has consequences for work on decision culture. New neural networks play an important role in mastering the challenges ahead. To build them, Smart Decision Culture mainly uses the positive somatic markers associated with pleasant feelings and beneficial bodily reactions. In this way, resources that a manager already has are used. Appropriate behaviours arise on the basis of a self-determined attitude. In this sense, the concept supports the personal development of managers and up-and-coming managers.