Big Decisions and the Last Responsible Moment

As your leadership span-of-control grows so does the impact of your decisions. For that reason it’s important to develop a good decision making process for you and your team.

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Leadership Tools: Make big decision at the last responsible moment.

If the decision is obvious with plenty of history showing it’s the right decision for you then you should do one of three things in the following order:  

  1. Identify if there are others on your team that could easily make this decision.  If yes then have them make it to develop the team. 
  2. Identify if there are others on your team that will struggle with this decision could with help.  If yes then coach them through the process and have them make the decision to develop the team.  
  3. If 1 & 2 don’t apply then make it and move on.

For other more complicated and highly leveraged decisions with no clear right or wrong:

  1. Set a decision timeline and communicate it to those involved so they don’t think it is procrastination for the sake of procrastination.  Know the last possible moment you can make the decision where the advantage of waiting reaches a point of diminishing returns. 
  2. Identify sources of additional information including advisory services to help provide you more situational awareness
  3. Don’t over-analyze which will lead to more confidence than competency in your decision.  
  4. When you do decide be decisive and execute with discipline.
  5. Don’t start “Resulting” regardless of the outcome.



PICK SMART Improvements
Contractors will never have enough resources to solve all problems or take advantage of every opportunity they face. There are a couple tools that can be used to align the team around the best utilization of resources:
Integrated Systems - Defined
Construction contracting is highly competitive. Winning requires people and technology aligned with effective workflows to deliver maximum value for customers with minimum waste while allowing the business to scale sustainably.
Summary Definition: Aptitude X Desire X Learning and Practice = Capability and Capacity
This is the basic formula that determines what an individual and team will have in terms of capability and capacity.