Success in any business depends on the ability of distributing information and time in the amounts that would produce profitable ratio between resources spent and outcomes achieved.
What if we have to make decisions without knowing?
The varying relationship between information and time can become a real nightmare for anybody with authority and responsibility. People usually ask:
Do I have enough information to decide right now?
Aligning information & time becomes even more difficult when several entities with different systems and cultures embark on one project. Understandably, people often tend to hide the incorrect results of their work by fingerpointing at someone else 'causing the problem'. The teams in many alliance projects, that happily co-operate in the beginning, happen to get rough and retract information, trying to save their own interests in the end.
Some cases of project collaborations have come down to grisly effects of financial loses or even worse, leaving the unfinished work altogether. As a natural (not rational) response, traditional processes are replete with controls and check points. Decisions are referred up on the corporate or project ladder while subordinates are loosing productivity waiting for the decisions to be made ‘upstairs’. Top executives are snowed under requests for decisions and clarifications of instructions already given. Corporate emails and data rooms are full of meeting notes and memos in multiple versions. Individual responsibility is diluted in the flood of information quantities but nevertheless, everybody looks busy.
But what if the problem is not entirely in the end results where is usually found? What if in tracking the problem, the never ending spiral of causes and consequences leads us back to the beginning? What if the issue lies in the initial planning with some small negligence? Perhaps one decision was made too hastily or too many options eluded the correct choice. Or there was a small miscommunication somewhere in the process.
The Wheel of Ignorance
The spin-off principle behind each and every undesirable situation in business could be called the Wheel of Ingorance.
There are generally two causes for such a state:
- Culture based on ‘grey zones’ as manipulation areas to avoid direct responsibility and therefore consequences of an incorrect decision
- Competencies based on specialists of in-depth expertise but without sufficient overlaps to be able of considering larger perspectives often necessary to bridge over functional or departmental boundaries
There is no excuse for low revenues, lost elections or a car crash. All undesirable situations have only two common denominators:
Unforeseen Factors
Factors which we don’t know of because we overlooked, ignored or didn’t have enough time to take them into consideration. That is why all factors are theoretically foreseeable.
Incorrect Decision
A decision based on incorrect interpretations, assumptions, expectations and projections of past, present or future events.
Both are usually bound together.
In turn, temporarily or logically incorrect decision is almost always caused by:
Incorrect Ratio between Information and Time
A decision is strictly dependent upon the ratio between amounts of info & time. The more info to be acquired, selected and processed, the more time needs to be available. Not less important is when a decision is made within the available timeframe. If too early, the decision is exposed to the risk of having admittedly enough time but not enough information. If too late the decision is compromised by more than enough information yet not enough time. The key is to estimate the moment when the ratio between info & time reaches certain critical mass which is necessary to support a correct decision.
Information & time interdependency in decision making
Any disproportion of the above parametric model causes the following commonalities:
Too Much Info + Not Enough Time = Haste
Not Enough Info + Too Much Time = Idleness
Too Much Info + Too Much Time = Confusion
Not Enough Info + Not Enough Time = Error
Excluding further criteria such as competencies, capacities and capabilities of a decision maker, a decision is likely to be incorrect if info & time are provided in an incorrect ratio or a decision is made too early or too late.
The consequence is in principle only one:
Incorrect Ratio between Resources Used and Outcomes Achieved
In order to achieve certain state of reality which would fulfil our expectations therefore can be called an outcome; we always need to spend certain amounts of resources. An ideal decision is the one that sets a course of action in such a way that leads to achieving the best possible outcome (closest to expectations) with the use of minimal resources. Anything else goes down to the following extents:
-
Degree of satisfactory achievement
An outcome is achieved with the satisfactory amount of resources. -
Degree of dissatisfactory achievement
An outcome is achieved with the amount of resources exceeding a satisfactory level (incorrect performance). -
Degree of satisfactory non-achievement
An outcome is not achieved by use of resources deemed satisfactory (incorrect planning). -
Degree of non-satisfactory non-achievement
An outcome is not achieved no matter how much available resources are used (madness).
Incorrect Resource-Outcome ratio generally produces:
Incorrect Set of Circumstances
It means that a resulting state of reality is so much altered from expectations that the conditions, under which the original intent was conceived, are no longer available. Unless the appropriate factors are addressed and corrections made, the incorrect set of circumstances inexorably produces:
Incorrect Ratio between Information and Time
And the whole process starts again... It is advisable to establish an environment where information and time are set, shared and distributed according to authorities and responsibilities of collaborating entities, groups or individuals. The environment should be customised to suit its temporary purpose. The effect is simple: people know what they should know, when they should know, and do not know what they should not know to avoid unnecessary misunderstanding or obtrusions. The goals are obvious: transparency, security, definition, relevance and scalability of collaboration practices across any organisational and corporate boundaries.
