Decision-Making Is Infrastructure

We underestimate decision-making.

It’s often thought about as something organizations do. We hire someone, choose a strategy, allocate resources, approve a new structure, decide what to stop doing (sometimes—wink).

But decision-making is also part of the infrastructure that allows an organization to function. That sounds incredibly obvious when I type it. Here’s what I mean. Decision-making is part of what I describe as Organizational Capacity: the various infrastructure dimensions that work together to give an organization the ability to do what it exists to do — and to keep doing it as conditions change.

Like any infrastructure, these pieces don't all have to be perfect all the time.

Think Jenga.

Every block does not have to be perfectly positioned for the structure to stand. Some can be weaker. Some can shift. Some can even be missing. But enough of the structure must be solid, in the right places, to hold.

Organizations work that way too.

And the more movement there is around the structure, the more consequential that foundation becomes.

That's where I think we are now.

Since COVID, organizations have been operating through what feels like one long series of changing conditions: where and how people work, what employees expect, what technology makes possible, what customers and communities need, economic and political uncertainty, AI, new workforce realities.

I haven’t found any evidence that we're headed back to some stable period where everyone can finally get their footing and stay there.

Change is the condition. We are forevermore becoming.

So, the goal can't be to make the environment predictable.

But we can make some of the ways we operate within it more predictable.

We can get better at the things that are ours to design.

Decision-making is one of them.

People may not know what the next six months will bring. They can know how important decisions get made here.

They can understand who has authority and who has input. They can know when their participation matters and what kind of participation is being asked of them. They can understand the criteria being used to make a choice. They can see how a decision moved from question to consideration to conclusion.

That kind of process clarity doesn't eliminate uncertainty. However, it does give people something solid to stand on inside it.

And this is where decision-making becomes a question of inclusion, of living our values.

Inclusion shows up in many ways, but often begins with when people enter the process, what they are being asked to contribute, and whether what they are being invited to influence is actually still open to influence.

Timing matters.

People are far more likely to feel ownership of something they had a meaningful role in creating. That's true of goals, strategies, decisions — and organizations themselves.

Inclusive decision-making doesn't mean everyone decides everything. It means being intentional about bringing the people who will be affected by a decision into the process at the right time and in the right way.

Be clear about the scope of the decision. Who ultimately decides? Who needs to be consulted? What is genuinely open for consideration? What isn't? How will input be used?

And before people begin advocating for particular options, agree on what matters.

What does this decision need to accomplish? What does "good" look like? What tradeoffs are we willing to make? What can't we compromise?

Set the criteria before the options are on the table.

These may sound like small process choices. They aren't.

How decisions happen teaches people something about the organization they are part of.

It tells them whether participation is real or performative. Whether the rules are clear. Whether their contribution matters. Whether they can trust the process even when the outcome isn't the one they would have chosen.

Those experiences accumulate. They become expectations. They affect trust. Ownership. Willingness to implement. People's ability to see themselves as part of the future the organization is trying to create.

And, yes, they shape culture.

None of this will make an uncertain world predictable. It won't keep every Jenga block perfectly in place.

But perfect by everyone’s definition is not the goal.

The question is whether we have built enough solidity into the things we can control that people and organizations have something dependable to work from when everything else is moving.

We may not be able to give people certainty.

But we can give them clarity.

We can make participation consequential.

We can make our processes trustworthy.

In a world that keeps moving, that kind of organizational capacity matters more, not less.

-DeEtta

A Sounding will show you where your organization's decision-making stands today. Our courses are where you build capacity with your team.

Measure your Organizational Capacity here: https://assessment.cultureroad.com/sounding