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Joy and Decision-makingHow do I collaborate in the best way possible when making and communicating decisions?We see Decision-making and Change implementation as partners. This thought was sparked because…● When Ed went to Roxanne’s conferences about Change, he heard a lot of Change experts talkabout the unfortunate position of implementing bad decisions.● When Roxanne went to Ed’s conferences about Decision Analytics, she heard a lot of Decisionexperts talk about how to get decision-makers to implement the change.Most of us know that change can more easily happen when the right people are involved in the decision.Unfortunately, that’s often impractical. There may be no way to recognize who should be involved becauseso much about the decision is still to be discovered. There may not be time to engage the right peoplebecause it’s too risky to wait. The right people simply may not be available, accessible or willing toparticipate. Even so, the idea is to try to involve the right people and recognize that you may not have itright. You may need to bring others in after the fact and try to integrate their point of view as much as ispractical. This doesn’t necessarily mean the same people involved in the decision are involved in thechange implementation. It just needs to make sense to the people involved. For example, would the peopleinvolved in the change implementation look at the names of the people involved in the decision andbelieve that all the right roles and perspectives were represented? And, vice versa? Below are ourtechniques to address some of the most common Decision-Making and Change Leadership challengespeople face. We hope this inspires you to approach change decisions in a new (and joyful!) way.1 © 2020 The Change Decision

1: Techniques for Positive Team InvolvementProblem 1: How do I communicate a decision to my team and stand firm withoutshutting the team down?Some basic philosophy:● Situation 1: It’s okay for you to be the unilateral decider sometimes, especially in your domain ofexpertise. That’s part of why you were hired!● Situation 2: Sometimes you have to communicate decisions made by others that you don’t havecontrol over.● In both cases, you can communicate the decision and invite constructive reaction from the team.The team may not have a say in the decision but they can have an influence in how to make thedecision happen.Technique:● Communicate the decision and why it was made. Clarify the implications for the team and what’sexpected of them. Acknowledge the difficulties if you’re aware of them.● Ask the team to help you make this happen and describe what’s at stake if it doesn’t happen well.● Ask the team for their thoughts: “I think I understand the implications for us as a team but I want tohear from you to make sure I do.”○ What do you like about this decision?○ What do you find challenging about it?○ What would you recommend to overcome these challenges?● Ideally, the people on the team who are most influential would respond constructively. If you’reconcerned about this, you could meet with them in advance to get their perspective and thenshare that in the team meeting. “Joe and I talked about this yesterday and he mentioned thesechallenges and recommendations. What other thoughts do you have to solve?”Overcoming objections:● You want to keep people out of complaining and pointing fingers and instead focus on what youcan control. In other words, remind the team that there’s a lot you can do to overcome obstacles,it’s often a matter of attitude.● Say what you’re committed to doing and invite others to offer suggestions. “I’m committed to do Xto help us succeed. What other suggestions do you have? What else could we do?”Problem 2: How do I get input from the team without creating chaos and confusionabout who is deciding? How do I get input and remain the decider?Some basic philosophy:● As stated before, it’s okay for you to be the ultimate decider especially when you have experiencethat needs to be applied in the situation you’re facing.● That said, sometimes it’s a good idea to get thoughts from the team, especially when the team canhelp you see the implications of the decision and/or when you think they might have some goodideas.● You can help them feel heard, even if you decide to take an approach they didn’t suggest.2 © 2020 The Change Decision

Technique:● Explain the situation and the decision you need to make. Share why the decision is important tothe company and the team.● Say that you would like their thoughts on what you should consider so they can help you see thepossibilities and options.● To do this, ask them to take a few minutes to write down their thoughts. This ensures everyone hasa chance to reflect on what they see and would recommend.● Then go to each person to ask what they wrote and why they think it’s important. Ask clarifyingquestions to make sure you understand. Thank them. This ensures everyone is heard and avoidsdominant voices.● After you’ve heard from everyone, say what will happen next and when they’ll hear from you aboutit.Communicating the decision:● When you’re ready to share the decision, say how each person’s thoughts were considered.● Acknowledge what you decided not to do and why.● The idea is not to accommodate everyone’s wishes. That’s usually not reasonable. It is reasonableto consider everyone’s point of view and make the best decision given what you know at thatmoment.● If you feel like the decision you’re making is going to be extremely unpopular, you can introduce itas an experiment, “I understand this isn’t what you prefer but given what I know this appears to be thebest decision right now. Let’s try this for a month and see what we can learn from it.”● You can also add the technique from Problem 1.● The goal is to make sure everyone feels heard by you. This builds trust. It also helps the team learnhow to have collaborative decision-making conversations in the future.Problem 3: How do we make a group decision so that everyone feels good aboutthe process even though everyone may not be completely satisfied with the finaldecision?Some basic philosophy:● When making a group decision, you may be concerned about soliciting ideas that you can’t act onor obstacles you don’t have the power to remove. You may also be concerned that you’ll be leftwith a bunch of ideas with no constructive way for the group to evaluate them. This is wheremaking a group decision using a step-by-step approach is useful.● The goal of this technique is to understand what everyone in the group values in the decisionbecause that tells you what each person is using as their criteria for evaluating the decisionoptions. We call this a Value-Based Decision-Making process.Technique:● Explain the situation and the decision you need to make. Share why the decision is important tothe company and the team.● Say that to do this you’re going to use a step-by-step process to decide rather than going straightto brainstorming various solutions.● Explain the process at a high level and then begin:○ Give everyone 5 minutes to write down what they care about in the decision.○ Using a Jamboard or other digital collaboration tool, ask everyone to put their answers onthe board.3 © 2020 The Change Decision

○ One by one, talk through what each team member cares about and group the themes asthey emerge in the conversation.○ Ask everyone to add all of the possibilities for addressing what everyone cares about; aftera few minutes pause to find out who has added the most possibilities then ask everyoneelse to come up with that many and add them to the board. Even crazy possibilities arewelcomed because they often lead to solutions that are less obvious.○ Again, talk through the alternatives and group them into themes.○ Now evaluate how well each alternative addresses everything the group cares about,identified in steps b and c above. Don’t just focus on what the group has in common aboutwhat they care about but everything the group cares about.○ If at this point you don’t have a clear solution yet, identify the set of solution options thatmake the most sense to the group. See if there’s an opportunity to combine them or ifthere’s a compromise that makes sense. If you need more information before you can makea final decision, agree on the next steps for gathering that information and schedule asecond meeting to finalize.A non-work example:A simple example of this process in action is when you and your friends are deciding where to gofor lunch. Typically, the group will start to throw out names of restaurants. This often gets mixedreactions and then you have a bunch of options that the group can’t agree on. Instead of thisapproach you can pose the question, “what do we value?” Someone might say they want to sitoutside. Another person might say they need a restaurant that has vegetarian options. Anotherperson might say they want to stay in the neighborhood. Now you’ve identified everything thegroup cares about and this makes it easier to determine the options that fit. Once you’ve identifiedthose options then you can evaluate how well each option addresses what the group cares aboutand arrive at a decision.2: Techniques for Resetting Boundaries with ClientsProblem 1: How do I communicate a decision to my client and stand firm withoutnegatively impacting the relationship?Some basic philosophy:● Situation 1: It’s okay for you to be the unilateral decider sometimes, especially in your domain ofexpertise. That’s at least part of why you were hired by your client!● Situation 2: Sometimes you have to communicate decisions made by others that you don’t havecontrol over.● In both cases, you can communicate the decision and invite constructive reaction from the clientso you can confirm you’re meeting their needs.Technique:1. Do a Change Impact Assessment.○ Before bringing the decision to the client, evaluate the impact of the decision to the clientso you can determine what’s reasonable for you to do to help them accept the decision.Use these 6 questions to do a quick Change Impact Assessment:i. What will the client need to do differently?ii. From their perspective how big a change is that?4 © 2020 The Change Decision

iii. What is their expected reaction? Why?iv. What changes are in recent memory and how did they go?v. What would an ideal and successful transition look like from your perspective andtheirs?vi. What would make it easier for them to accept the change?○ You may not know all of the answers to these questions and that’s okay. The point of theexercise is to see if you can identify and reasonably address their likely expectations. Whenyou come to the conversation with these offers it can help the client see that you’re tryingto understand and address what they need yet setting boundaries so that it’s realistic foryou to successfully deliver for them. The goal you have in common is that you both want tosuccessfully deliver for them, the question is about how to do that so that you both feelgood about it.○ Prepare what you need to explain the decision and what you need to help make it easier forthem. In other words, it’s important that they experience a demonstration of yourintention as soon as is reasonably possible for you.2. Have the conversation.○ Introduce the decision and why it was made. Explain how this will help you successfullydeliver for them.○ Acknowledge that this may have an impact on them and that you’ve sought to address thisby doing certain things; explain what those things are and how you hope it makes it easierfor them to implement the decision.○ Ask them how this addresses what they need and if there’s any other need you’re notaware of.i. If they state a need you’ve already addressed in your plan, point that out and ask ifthere is something you’re not seeing because you may be able to make anadjustment to address it.ii. If they share something new that you can’t address right then in the conversationsay that you and the team will talk to determine what you can do to address thatneed.iii. If you cannot address a need they state you can ask them what’s behind the need soyou can see the bigger picture. This may help you see reasonable alternatives toaddress the need.iv. If the need they have is unreasonable, you can share why you cannot meet the needin terms of it negatively impacting your ability to successfully deliver for them.v. Another alternative to option iv above is to suggest you try implementing thedecision as a temporary experiment and check in at an agreed date to discuss howit’s going. During this time it will be important for you to demonstrate that you’rereasonably addressing the needs they have.vi. Another alternative to option iv above is to agree to meet the unreasonable needtemporarily with milestones to incrementally back off this agreement. During thistime you can help them see how you are using other ways to reasonably meet theirneeds.Additional thoughts to consider:To maintain the client’s confidence in you in light of this decision which may be throwing them off,you’ll need to keep your stated commitments and think ahead to what the client needs.Anticipating and proactively addressing their needs will grow their trust. The goal is to help themsee that although you’ve set clear boundaries, they are benefiting from it.5 © 2020 The Change Decision

Problem 2: How do I get input from my client without creating confusion aboutwho is deciding? How do I get input from them and remain the decider?Some basic philosophy:● As stated before, it’s okay for you to be the ultimate decider especially when you have experiencethat needs to be applied in the situation you’re facing.● That said, sometimes it’s a good idea to get thoughts from the client, especially when the client canhelp you see the implications of the decision and/or when you think they might have some goodideas.● You can help them feel heard, even if you decide to take an approach they didn’t suggest.Technique:● Introduce the decision and how it has the potential to improve your ability to deliver what theyneed. Explain that you would like their input because you want to understand the options they seeand the implications of the decision for them.● Ask them to share their reactions to the decision and the questions they have about it. Make anote of the type of questions they ask because that can tell you how far along they are to acceptingthe decision outcome and identify potential sticking points:○ Why and timing questions indicate they’re trying to engage in the decision discussion.○ Questions about what they need to do differently or how others are impacted indicatethey understand this decision will impact them.○ Questions about how to get started with implementing the decision indicate that they maybe ready to start trying to make the change.● Ask them to share the implications they see and what they care about in the decision. You maywant to ask them to prioritize the things they care about from most to least important.● After gathering their reactions, thank them. Say how you plan to use their input to make thedecision and when they can expect to hear from you next.Communicating the decision:● When you’re ready to share the decision, use the Change Impact Assessment technique outlinedin Problem 1 above.● Say how their input was considered. Acknowledge what you decided not to do and why. Alwaysattempt to connect the decision to how this will help you successfully deliver for them.● Use the “Have the conversation” techniques in Problem 1 to communicate and negotiate adecision implementation timeline if needed.Problem 3: How do we make a decision with our client as a group so that everyonefeels good about the process even though not everyone will be completely satisfiedwith the final decision?Use the same approach here as the approach outlined in Problem 3 on pages 3-4 but position the decisionin terms of successfully delivering for them.Variation:Don’t involve your team in the client discussion. Do the Value-Based Decision-Making process with justthe members of the client team. That way you’ll capture all of the criteria the client team is using toevaluate the decision. In this case, take this as input to bring back to your team to make the decision ratherthan deciding in the client meeting.6 © 2020 The Change Decision

Decision-making and TrustMaking it clear how you’re acting on thedecision input you receive from others isa way to build trust. That’s becausepeople want to feel they’ve been heard,even if you make a decision that’sdifferent from the recommendationsthey provided.● How can you make sure inputproviders feel heard regardless ofthe decision you ultimately make?● When have you had this experienceas an input provider? How did youfeel about the decision-makingprocess? What can you incorporateinto your decision-making andcommunication approach?● How does your approach todecision-making align with theculture you want to have on yourteam? How does it align with theexperience you want your team tohave as employees working for you?7 © 2020 The Change Decision