CEO Briefs - What area does your advisory engagement aim to address - Decision making

What does your advisory engagement aim to address?

Organisational performance concerns manifest in explicit observations: teamwork is replaced with suspicion and a heightened sense of territorial protection, the company’s leadership increasingly focuses on processes, growing reference is made to policies and procedures in the conduct of business, good employees leave and competition begins to be felt more. Customer complaints increase, market share drops and the business’ profitability dips.

If at any time you will engage a management consultant or any other form of advisory, what will area will your advisory engagement seek to address…….

Though this grim picture can be avoided by prudent leadership and good governance, a company may engage management consultancy services to try and reverse any of these situations, or in total disregard of any of them, to “formulate a strategy” for the company, normally covering anything between three to ten years.

This is where the consultant’s value to the business begins.

Decision-making processes

In many cases it may be the method and organisation of decision making (for both key and routine matters) which cause trouble. Excessive and often unnecessary centralisation of operational decisions may deprive the organisation of the flexibility needed to react to new market opportunities. In another case, autocratic, or otherwise ineffective leadership may be the reason why the business takes decisions without conferring with professionals and other experts within the organization itself and beyond.

The need to examine and reform the decision-making system may be the very reason why the consultant has been brought in; it may concern the classification of decisions in groups by their nature, the urgency with which decisions need to be made, financial implications of various decisions, their degree of complexity and various other structural considerations.

Other considerations may include the information on the basis of which typical decisions are taken; the respective decision-making roles played by line managers; the role of committees and other collective bodies in preparing and adopting decisions; participation of employee representatives in decision making; the decision-making and advisory roles of individuals in informal positions of influence; the responsibility for decisions, their implementation, control of the implementation process and ultimately the responsibility for outcomes.

Contemplate this: When was the last time you seriously gave thought to your decision-making processes?

We know that no one organisation is like another. Our CEO Briefs are intended to give CEOs and other C-suite Executives insights into what we know really matters to them, to hopefully both provoke and inspire them to take necessary action in ways that best suite their circumstances.