In a recent post, I acknowledged that decision making is tough but what is harder is making the same decision or revisiting the decision over and over again. To revisit a decision we need a set of criteria that would dictate that it is really necessary to review a decision. It could be that the overall market has tanked and the environment is such that something needs to change in the product or service. It could be that there is a problem with a major component, can’t get it or it costs way more than projected and now all of the profit is gone. It could be that an unknown competitor developed a similar product or service. Or it could be a known competitor that is leapfrogging your product idea. All legitimate reasons to revisit. And there are probably several more reasons.
What is not a legitimate reason to revisit a decision is that we forgot why the decision was made in the first place. Another reason to not revisit a decision is that someone THINKS a new idea is better but has done no research to substantiate why.
The response of the manager or the management team for a call to revisit a decision will be critical. This is when the right questions or good questions or both are needed.
John Maxwell wrote a book titled Good Leaders Ask Great Questions. The basic premise is that good leaders don’t make the decision, whether they have an answer or not, they ask the questions that help the group make the decision for the good of the organization. “That’s easy. I ask questions all the time.” you might say. But the reality is that asking a really great question or a series of really good questions is hard. It usually takes time. You need time to think about the problem. You need to think about where the questions might lead the group. You need to think about possible responses to your questions and then follow-up questions to keep things moving. This is not a chess match but you as the leader need to think a few steps ahead or visioning alternate scenarios.
Maybe the best questions are “what has changed to make you feel that we need to revisit this decision? What has SUBSTANTIALLY changed from the time of our original decision?” The key is “substantially”. By asking “what” we are trying to get some data point to discuss rather than someone’s feeling about the project or product. Another technique to ask questions is the ladder technique. When the issue comes up the leader asks “why”? When the answer is given ask “why else”? When that answer is given ask again “why else”? The idea is to continue to ask why to find out what is the heart of the problem. It could be that it has nothing to do with the product but has to do with the individual and the lack of recognition on the project or something entirely else.
Average and mediocre businesses continue to revisit a decision to such a point that progress on the project is halted. Done often enough, everyone on the team expects there to be a delay as a rehash takes place. Sometimes team members will introduce feature creep into the project that causes the trigger of rehashing a decision. Members will feel comfortable introducing new topics related to the project and it gets delayed. These kinds of activities will push good businesses to mediocre businesses and mediocre into bad.
I absolutely believe that we need to question assumptions and partial data. But once the question has been asked and answered and a course set, STOP questioning the assumptions, the data, and the course. Again. And again. And again.
Originally published in Medium - June 10, 2018