Understanding Decision-Making Dynamics

Many senior leaders have a strong "do now" mentality. They want to "move fast", "take action", and "just try it". While this has proven successful in environments with high variability and low data (e.g. startups), it often backfires in situations that require complex decision-making or big organizational shifts. When "do now" is overly valued: 😓 Large reorgs turn messy and set the company back for quarters if not years. 😓 Teams experience constant churn and low ROI from launches, jumping from idea to idea too quickly. 😓 Underinvestment in first-order-negative-but-second-order-positive competitive differentiators, leading to a lack of long-term defensive moats. It turns out that many complex challenges that organizations and teams face today benefit from deep thinking first. To bring this balance into your organization, try the following: ✅ Work with leaders who prefer to "Think Deeply First", and be compassionate about their slower approach to decision-making. ✅ Invest time in debating alternatives, weighing various risks, or making sure everyone's opinions are heard. ✅ Open up your decision-making to a diverse team and take the time to truly hear feedback. Remember, when your "do now" clashes with another trusted leader's "think first", take a step back and consider whether a slower and more considered approach will have outsized benefit in the long term. ----- 👋 Hi! I'm Yue. I am a Chief Product and Technology Officer turned Executive Coach. I help women and minority aspiring executives break through to the C-suite. 🚀  🔔 Follow me for more content on coaching, leadership, and career growth.

I was Wrong about Influence. Early in my career, I believed influence in a decision-making meeting was the direct outcome of a strong artifact presented and the ensuing discussion. However, with more leadership experience, I have come to realize that while these are important, there is something far more important at play. Influence, for a given decision, largely happens outside of and before decision-making meetings. Here's my 3 step approach you can follow to maximize your influence: (#3 is often missed yet most important) 1. Obsess over Knowing your Audience Why: Understanding your audience in-depth allows you to tailor your communication, approach and positioning. How: ↳ Research their backgrounds, how they think, what their goals are etc. ↳ Attend other meetings where they are present to learn about their priorities, how they think and what questions they ask. Take note of the topics that energize them or cause concern. ↳ Engage with others who frequently interact with them to gain additional insights. Ask about their preferences, hot buttons, and any subtle cues that could be useful in understanding their perspective. 2. Tailor your Communication Why: This ensures that your message is not just heard but also understood and valued. How: ↳ Seek inspiration from existing artifacts and pickup queues on terminologies, context and background on the give topic. ↳ Reflect on their goals and priorities, and integrate these elements into your communication. For instance, if they prioritize efficiency, highlight how your proposal enhances productivity. ↳Ask yourself "So what?" or "Why should they care" as a litmus test for relatability of your proposal. 3. Pre-socialize for support Why: It allows you to refine your approach, address potential objections, and build a coalition of support (ahead of and during the meeting). How: ↳ Schedule informal discussions or small group meetings with key stakeholders or their team members to discuss your idea(s). A casual coffee or a brief virtual call can be effective. Lead with curiosity vs. an intent to respond. ↳ Ask targeted questions to gather feedback and gauge reactions to your ideas. Examples: What are your initial thoughts on this draft proposal? What challenges do you foresee with this approach? How does this align with our current priorities? ↳ Acknowledge, incorporate and highlight the insights from these pre-meetings into the main meeting, treating them as an integral part of the decision-making process. What would you add? PS: BONUS - Following these steps also expands your understanding of the business and your internal network - both of which make you more effective. --- Follow me, tap the (🔔) Omar Halabieh for daily Leadership and Career posts.

Here's a revealing question for leaders: Do you actually know what decisions your team made last week? 👀 If you're like most managers, the answer is no. A Reality Check: Senior team members make dozens of significant decisions daily that you never see. Many of these shape your product, team, and culture in ways you don't realize. In the Teamwork Lab, we developed a simple but powerful exercise. How it works: 1️⃣ Ask your team to log their decisions for a week 2️⃣ Categorize decisions by type and impact 3️⃣ Discuss and work together to: ▶️ Identify patterns in stuck vs. flowing decisions ▶️ Clarify ownership boundaries ▶️ Remove unnecessary approvals What we learned: 🙌 19% increase in decision clarity ✅ 60% made more progress than usual 💙 85% would recommend to their teammates I’m an involved, supportive manager—and I was *shocked* by how much I learned the first time I did this with my team. It showed me new ways they excel in their roles, and how to help them remove friction or reduce complexity. 💡 Try it: Ask your team to write down every decision they make this week. When you discuss, ask how they *felt*. You’re not questioning their judgement or revisiting the outcome. You’re focused on understanding their experience. What was unclear? What was frustrating? What was easy? You'll be surprised—and you'll immediately see how to be a more effective leader. #Leadership #TeamEffectiveness #DecisionMaking

72% of executives admit they struggle to think strategically. Not because they lack vision. But because they’re trapped in the noise of urgent decisions. In a world obsessed with execution, strategic thinking is becoming a rare superpower. The best leaders don’t just react — they anticipate. They don’t ask “What now?” They ask “What’s next?” And they’ve mastered one thing above all: The ability to pause and ask better questions. Questions that reveal blind spots, surface hidden risks, and unlock long-term clarity. Next time you’re setting direction or making a big bet, use these 6 strategic thinking prompts to guide your mind: 1. Zoom Out ↳ What does success look like in 1, 3, and 5 years? 2. Spot the Shifts ↳ Where are we winning — and where are we being outpaced? 3. Pressure Test the Plan ↳ What would make this strategy fail? 4. Surface the Stakes ↳ Who benefits, who loses, and what’s at risk if we act (or don’t)? 5. Think Like a Competitor ↳ If I were them, how would I beat us? 6. Stress-Test for Scale ↳ How will this work when we grow 10x? What breaks first? Strategic thinking isn’t about solving today’s problems. It’s about designing tomorrow’s advantage. And it doesn’t start with answers. It starts with better questions. 📌 Save this for your next quarterly offsite 💬 Which question hit home the most? Drop it below ♻️ Repost to help more leaders think long-term 🔔 Follow Natan Mohart for more tools on smart leadership, decision making, and strategic clarity.

Ever been in a meeting that feels like a hamster wheel of indecision? The same points circling endlessly, everyone is tired but no conclusion in sight? Decision paralysis costs organizations dearly—not just in wasted meeting time, but in missed opportunities and team burnout. After studying teams for years, I've noticed that most decision stalls happen for predictable reasons: • Unclear decision-making process (Who actually decides? By when?) • Hidden disagreements that never surface • Fear of making the wrong choice • Insufficient information • No one feeling authorized to move forward    The solution isn't mysterious, but it requires intention. Here's what you can do: First, name the moment. Simply stating, "I notice we're having trouble making a decision here" can shift the energy. This small act of leadership acknowledges the struggle and creates space to address it. Second, clarify the decision type using these levels: • Who has final authority? (One person decides after input) • Is this a group decision requiring consensus? • Does it require unanimous agreement? • Is it actually a collection of smaller decisions we're bundling together?    Third, establish decision criteria before evaluating options. Ask: "What makes a good solution in this case?" This prevents the common trap of judging ideas against unstated or contradictory standards. Fourth, set a timeline. Complex decisions deserve adequate consideration, but every decision needs a deadline. One team I worked with was stuck for weeks on a resource allocation issue. We discovered half the team thought their leader wanted full consensus while she assumed they understood she'd make the final call after hearing everyone's input. This simple misunderstanding had cost them weeks of productivity. After implementing these steps, they established a clear practice: Every decision discussion began with explicitly stating what kind of decision it was, who would make it, and by when. Within a month, their decision-making improved dramatically. More importantly, team members reported feeling both more heard and less burdened by decision fatigue. Remember: The goal isn't making perfect decisions but making timely, informed ones that everyone understands how to implement. What's your go-to approach when team decisions get stuck? Share your decision-making wisdom. P.S. If you’re a leader, I recommend checking out my free challenge: The Resilient Leader: 28 Days to Thrive in Uncertainty  https://lnkd.in/gxBnKQ8n