Good judgment in business is becoming increasingly difficult. Scientific studies show how our decisions are affected aby our own ideas and emotions. But current decision cause more and more serious consequences. Consequently, a single wise leader in a compay is a rather outdated myth. Decision-making can be positively affected by those who know most about the issues to be decided - the employees. Let's see now examples of how this works, and what the benefits are.
WGB Construction is a small construction company in Boston. When it is necessary to make an important decision, the president asks for suggestions those who have the best overview of things, for example, demographers and construction workers. As a result, the company was able to sell a property, which seemed impossible to sell, or made floorplans which attracted a whole new segment of customers.
EMC, a big company providing data storage services, has created an internal social network EMC|One, and decided to use it to reduce costs in times of recession. They asked the staff for suggestions on how to save money and reduce inefficient practices. Proposals went as messages to line managers. The resulting cuts hurt employees significantly less than in other firms.
A diverse perspective is the best prevention of biased decisions. In addition, the company obtains a large amount of valuable information.
In every company, there are people of various minds and their heads are full of valuable information. And that information in combination with the judgments of the people involved are necessary for proper decision-making of an organization as a whole. Companies should, therefore, implement clear processes to obtain this know-how and to cultivate a corporate culture that allows everyone to pull in one direction. NASA is an example of an organization that has established similar processes after a disaster. Today there are clear protocols and sa system to obtain different views. A launch will then be decided together and even the astronauts themselves participate in this decision-making.
Human lives do not need to be at stake. Creating a similar process may help in an organizational decision making, because a single leader's judgement may not be enough in today's world.
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