Hi Reader,

Have you ever thought of how your team makes decisions? Or is it just you? Or maybe your boss? When we think about decision-making, we often think about the process, the framework, the trade-offs, and the cost of delay. But do we really notice who makes a decision? And what’s the cost when decisions start to follow the style of whoever is at the top?

Decision Design

In the latest Built by People Leaders episode, I talk with Kylee Ingram, co-founder and CEO of Wizer, about why decisions drift toward sameness as companies scale - the cognitive drift.

Her approach starts with seven ways people make a decision.

Achievers look for outcomes.
Collaborators gather perspectives.
Analyzers want evidence.
Deliverers think in process.
Explorers look at options.
Guardians look at risk.
Visionaries look to the future.

A decision gets the best outcome when all seven are part of it. Most teams have two or three. Across all the teams Wizer has mapped, Kylee can hardly think of an exception.

Decision Design has three steps.

1) Name the decision you’re making.

2) Check which profiles the people making it cover, and which are missing.

3) Then bring in people from other teams to fill the gap, for this decision only. Nobody’s role or reporting line changes.

Why it works

Two reasons.

First, it stops the group from copying the top. According to Kylee, 75% of CEOs in the Western world are Achievers or Explorers, and that style spreads: "who's at the top of the tree then tends to become that way by middle management." People adapt because "they've got to behave like this to get up the scale." If nobody checks, every decision group ends up looking like the CEO. When a profile is missing, so are its questions. With no Guardian involved, nobody asks about risk.

Second, you already have the people you need. When Wizer's system recommends people to add to a decision, 40 to 60% of them have never been asked to take part in one before. It doesn't slow things down either. Give a designed group and an undesigned group the same hour, and the designed group reaches the better decision. In Kylee's words: "It doesn't need to be more time. It's just about the design."

Try it this week

Pick one decision coming up in the next month and write down who's involved. Next to each name, write how that person comes at a decision: outcomes, perspectives, evidence, process, options, risk, or vision. You'll know most of these already. When Kylee asks teams to place their own leaders, "they all know immediately." If you're unsure about someone, ask them. Or go to Wizer and do your decision profile.

Then look at the gaps. For each missing profile, name one person on another team who thinks that way and invite them for this decision only:

"We're deciding [X] next week, and we're light on [risk / evidence / process]. That's how you tend to look at things. Would you join us for this one?"

One line worth keeping

"You don't need to restructure. You can just say, hey, well this is what we're missing."

You fix a gap in how your team thinks by borrowing the right people for this decision.

The full episode has the stories behind this. The Sydney Children's Hospital Foundation tripled its pediatric research funding after it opened up who took part in funding decisions. A board and executive team found out how far they skewed toward Analyzers and Achievers, and replaced a permanent advisory board with groups formed for each decision. And Kylee explains why she thinks AI can't do the deep questioning a good decision needs. You can listen on your favorite platform.