120. Making good decisions: You’ll never be perfect

When it comes to good governance, the conditions for great decision-making will never be perfect. But the journey is what counts. Background music is Of the Stars by KC Roberts & the Live Revolution   SCRIPT One thing I noticed when I first read chapter 1 of the Heath Brothers’ Decisive is that I fall victim to the four villains of decision making basically every time I make any decision. I bet you felt the same. And it gets even worse when you’re trying to make decisions as a group. Everyone brings their own “flavour” of the four villains to the table, making it super difficult to manage everything perfectly. Decisive offers some cool ideas, which you should review and test out yourself. I want to suggest that the status quo of boards of directors specifically, and corporate governance in general, create basically the perfect conditions for the four villains to thrive: time scarcity + information asymmetry + expertise asymmetry + rule-driven norms and so on, so on, so on. So here’s the thing: if you buy into my definition of good governance even a little bit, the definition being actively creating conditions that maximize the likelihood that effective decisions will get made, then the status quo of boards – from the rules of order, to the structure of meetings, to the layout of the boardroom to the flow of conversations – all of it has the significant potential to work AGAINST good governance. So, to the extent that you see a bit of the four villains of decision-making in yourself, your organization, and your boardroom…what you’re seeing is NORMAL, but it’s also bad governance. The next time you craft an agenda, prepare a board presentation, frame a key decision, kick off a conversation, read your pre-read materials, etc. Keep the four villains in mind and ask how you can set yourself, your board, your management team up to create the conditions for effective decisions. It won’t be perfect, but the effort itself is, in my opinion, the key to good governance.