A Job Done Well - Making Work Better

Mastering Decisions: The Manager's Essential Skill

• Jimmy Barber, James Lawther • Season 3 • Episode 13

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In this week’s episode, we discuss effective decision-making. It is the cornerstone of good management, and makes up 80-90% of a manager’s role. While pressure and incomplete information are constants, improving this skill is the fastest route to better results.

First, we discuss four common mistakes.

  1. Ignoring Stakeholders: Never forget the customer's view. Always consider how your decisions affect those you serve. 
  2. Falling into Groupthink: When teams agree without challenge, the outcome is often flawed. 
  3. Acting on Instinct: Over-reliance on gut feeling leads to missed opportunities. 
  4. Information Overload: Too much data causes ‘analysis paralysis’; you can be overwhelmed by too many metrics. 

Then, to help you make solid choices, we discuss a simple, three-phase model:

  1. Define: Clearly state the root problem and validate your essential data.
  2. Challenge: Test the decision using a Devil's Advocate and ensure you don't let Sunk Costs influence future action.
  3. Assess: Consider the risks and have a clear mitigation plan if things go wrong.

By moving from guesswork to a disciplined, reflective process, you can make better decisions and significantly improve your performance.

Got a question - get in touch. Click here.

Speaker 6:

Hello, I'm James. Hi, I'm Jimmy and welcome to a Job Done Well, the podcast that helps you improve your performance enjoyment at work.

James:

Good evening. Good evening, good afternoon. How you doing?

JImmy:

It's getting dark now, isn't it? The evenings are drawing in.

James:

Yeah, it is very close to that. Very close to

JImmy:

Well, good afternoon James. How are you?

James:

Fabulous. Thank you very much. talking about today then?

JImmy:

So today, James, we are talking about decision making,

James:

Okay.

JImmy:

of it, and now you can do it really well. Often we have to do this under pressure. We don't always have all the right information and time, but if you can make better decisions, you can get better results and be a better manager overall.

James:

Well, I would argue a lot, well, maybe 80, 90% of management is about making decisions, so fairly

JImmy:

It's true. But before into that, James, what you been up to?

James:

Well, that's not what I've been up to. It's what I'm not gonna get up to. So as we record this, it's quarter to four on a December evening,

JImmy:

Yeah,

James:

at four o'clock, my youngest daughter is taking her first ever driving license.

JImmy:

no.

James:

So if you live in Nottingham, you'd be able to see it on the news disaster. Car crashes. Biggest traffic jam in the world. Yeah. So steer clear of, the quiet Nottingham streets on a

JImmy:

Oh it's stressful times, man.

James:

Stressful for me, or I am, I'm not I'm not having to do with it. We've decided that Mrs. Lau is a far better driving instructor than Mr. Law. It's not good for family relationships.

JImmy:

It's not good for anyone's mental health.

James:

So there

JImmy:

Well, good luck.

James:

Yeah. Thanks very much. So I'm just sitting here waiting for the bill.

JImmy:

It is worth paying. Whatever it is, just pay it.

James:

Yeah. How about you before

JImmy:

Well,

James:

got a tissue mate? It's like he's, obviously, Jimmy's been to London working that's.

JImmy:

London's cesspool of germs. But yeah, I like a lot of people, the, uh, flu virus is sweeping the country and it's swept me before it. The thing that I've been up to this week was one of our dogs was ill and he went to a pet hospital, which I didn't even know was a thing.

James:

pet hospital. Go on.

JImmy:

Yeah. Now there's a few things that it is worth pointing out. One, there's no pet ambulance, so you have to take them yourself. Two, when you get to the pet hospital, it is like a proper full on hospital. It's like a human hospital, but just for. For pets and three,

James:

cows and sheep and things like that there as well, or is there is

JImmy:

not that I saw, they might have had, but I didn't see them. Not that many people have cows or sheep as pets though, in fairness, So I think they're focused on cats and dogs.

James:

up in rural North, mate. It was quite common where I'm from.

JImmy:

I can make many jokes and bearing in mind that you, as my business partner and my life partner are both from Yorkshire, I'm only gonna get into bother.

James:

Yeah.

JImmy:

But the third thing was there's no NHS for pets, so it costs absolute thousands. It was costing apart from his treatment, it was costing him 600 pound an night just to be in hospital.

James:

That's some sort of fancy hotel that is, isn't it? Yeah.

JImmy:

I'm hoping

James:

I'm not a pet owner, so I'm a bit callous about this, but, that's total write off territory. It is new for old and all of that. Yeah.

JImmy:

honestly, you can tell you're not. There'll be loads of our listeners that our pet owners call you names now, rightly

James:

what's the.

JImmy:

Call Bastard. I think that's the one. Anyhow onto decision making. What do we mean by effective decision making and why is it important?

James:

Well, rather than answering your question as a good politician, I'm not gonna answer that question. I think we should dive into some of the poorer decisions that have been made and the reasons for them, and then that will just give a sense of what good decision making is like. Is it the opposite? All right.

JImmy:

The other thing to hold in our head is that last thing that you said at the start, which is 80 to 90% of your job is about making decisions. Whatever those decisions are, they might be like process decisions. They might be how you treat your staff, how you deal with a disciplinary issue, how you deal with coaching.

James:

Which projects you gonna allocate resources to where you're gonna build a factory. It goes on and on.

JImmy:

It is a daily thing, so hold that in your head. And then go on. Then James, tell us how decision making goes wrong. You're gonna have some nice stories for us. You always do.

James:

Now with this first one. But do you, so my first thing is just about not thinking about your stakeholders and your customers when you're making a decision. So a class example of this is Jared Ratner, 1991 I think it was, and the total crap incident. Do you remember that?

JImmy:

I remember. I remember it well. It was hilarious. But no, not all our listeners are that old. So tell us about Mr. Ratner.

James:

Mr. Ratner used to run a very big chain of jewelers called Ratners, would you believe? And it was a bit like Woolworths. I'm sorry if you're that age, you won't remember Woolworths either. There was one in every hang on. What.

JImmy:

You've got to update your, your stories and analogies, haven't you?

James:

a good one? It's a bit like, what's that shop? What's the shop called? Where everything's really cheap? Primar. That's it. It's a

JImmy:

Prime mark. Yeah.

James:

Primar. Yeah.

JImmy:

See now you're there. It's the prime mark of jewelry stores.

James:

It, there was one on every high street

JImmy:

Yeah.

James:

and Mr. Ratner was a very wealthy man. And, He was asked why, why, how he could afford to sell his jewelry at such low prices and, get the volumes through his shop, to which without thinking he made the decision to say, well, it's because it's total crap. And it might have been true, but his customers didn't love it for it. And, that is why there is no longer a ratner's jeweler on every high street in the country. So there you go. Think about your customers. That will be my first one when you're making decisions.

JImmy:

So what's the next one?

James:

so another one is group think

JImmy:

Yeah.

James:

all quote, isn't it? When everybody's thinking the same, nobody's thinking. Quite often in organizations we see group think lots of people thinking the same thing or agreeing. And I see another one showing me age. I was, oh, hang on. I must have been about nine when this one happened. 1977, the 10 airport disaster. Do you remember that one?

JImmy:

I do as well, showing my age as well, but again, for most of our listeners are a lot younger than that. So tell us about the 10 reef air disaster.

James:

that one, and the reason why we all remember it is there was a, I think it was a KLM, well maybe Royal Dutch Airways, it was called at the time, but it took off from Tenerif and it shouldn't have done and flew into an oh, taxied off into an oncoming plane and 583 people died.

JImmy:

Yeah.

James:

And what was interesting there is the, the head, the pilot of the, Dutch plane was, was, I think he was their chief training officer or something like

JImmy:

Right.

James:

a very senior guy and it was, I think it was foggy and, the, air traffic control had told him not to take off, but he decided it was perfectly safe and he was taking off and all his crew members agreed with him. So there you go. Group me group thinking,

JImmy:

sorry, Jones, how was that group? Think.

James:

So group think being when everybody agrees and agrees with the boss and shares his point of view, you see a lot of group thinking going on in the American cabinet at the moment. Yeah.

JImmy:

So that was just, he's the expert. He's saying we should take off, and everyone just says, yeah, we should, because you know best without thinking.

James:

Yes, absolutely. And not so much necessarily the expert, but he's the boss and I'm not gonna countermand you. So it's that whole. People thinking the same or not being prepared to say something different.

JImmy:

Yeah.

James:

Yeah,

JImmy:

Okay. So group thinks another one. What? What else have you got?

James:

So the next one I think really is people making judgements without enough information. Instinctive judgements. Yeah. So here's one. This is a one people will relate to, but there was a company called Excite who had the opportunity, probably about 10 of this century, to

JImmy:

They were a search engine, weren't they?

James:

they had the opportunity to buy Google for three quarters of a million quid. Three quarters, a million quid.

JImmy:

Three quarters, a quid,

James:

I would've taken three quarters of a million

JImmy:

we could come together and buy Google if that was what it was worth.

James:

a mortgage. I don't mind. Can I get a loan?

JImmy:

Yeah.

James:

But They didn't buy it. It is just stuff. They were overconfident in their own position. They thought that the whole thing looked too simple. The whole Google search engine was too simple, didn't think it was a challenge, and apparently their chief executive just said, nah, no, we're not doing that. So instinctive judgment, excite quite a lot of money, I think.

JImmy:

So what else we got?

James:

and then the final one, I suppose the

JImmy:

Yeah.

James:

of too little information and making distinctive It's just having too much information.

JImmy:

Yeah. Have you got an example of that?

James:

My favorite example of that is, I'm sorry, another one people won't know, but Three Mile Islands. Three Mile Islands was the biggest nuclear accident that ever happened on, in the United States. I think they got away very likely. It wasn't quite as full blown as it might have been, but they had a big nuclear issue in their plants. But when the, accident investigators went around and looked at it, one of the key things that they pointed out as we went into this, control room where people were deciding what to do and there were hundreds of alarms going off at the time of the incident, and they had something like 1900 different pieces of information that they could be looking at. So you go from, So much information that you just can't make a decision. You be compliant to it. So those are my sort of, key things to avoid doing. There are probably plenty of others, but that's what I

JImmy:

But that's a good, start. So should we go through those, great stories to highlight them, but should we go through those quickly and just say how you can avoid some of those things?

Speaker 8:

Our podcast is all about helping people, teams, and organizations perform better and enjoy work more. I get as far as to say that we believe that everyone and every team has the potential to transform their performance by optimizing what they currently do. So if you'd like to discuss how we can help you transform your performance, then get in touch or maybe check out our website. We also do speaking events, mentoring advice, work as well.

James:

Well, fairly simple. The first one, me what you think. So how do you avoid not listening to your customer?

JImmy:

Wow. There's a good way is, why don't you ask them? It's quite simple, isn't it?

James:

And forbid. Yeah, but why don't you ask them? Although it doesn't happen that often. I've worked, I worked for, I was gonna say I worked somewhere for a while for someone, let's do it like that. But I suggested we did a customer survey, find out what our customer, ser our customers thought of us. And then her response, God bless her, was, oh no, we can't do that. It's far too dangerous. Oh well. Yeah. So do you think that was a place that was, Destin for success?

JImmy:

There is lots of ways of asking them. Can do surveys. And, you can look at social media and look at what they're saying, what the sentiment is out there. Go and have a look. But also one of the most powerful ones I found was in one organization we did focus groups with our customers and, yeah. Sat behind the and honestly that changed my view of the work that we were doing. When you hear somebody who's a teacher who's lost her very modest pension and the impacts it's had on her life, you're thinking, whoever told you to invest your hard earned pension in Costa Rican, teak farms is doing wrong. You know what I mean?

James:

yeah,

JImmy:

So go and see it.'cause you do learn a lot, don't you?

James:

yeah. I've done that as well. Mine wasn't so deep. It was market research into vegetable burgers, mate. There's more You can do that. I mean, you ask them, even if you start thinking about them, have you heard about the Amazon share?

JImmy:

What's that?

James:

a share in the Amazon. No, it's not how we laughed. No. So allegedly and well, Jeff Bezos, who's obviously done something right? I mean, the key thing he does is he looks after his customers. We can argue the toss about whether he looks after his employees, but he certainly looks after his customers. And then one of the things he used to say was we'll always have an empty chair in a meeting room when we're making a decision, and that's the chair where the imaginary customer sits. And when we go around making the decision, we'll say, okay, so what does the customer think?

JImmy:

Yeah.

James:

it just forces you to think things through. So you don't necessarily have to ask them, but you certainly need to think about them.

JImmy:

Yeah. So the next one was you said was group think. How do you avoid group think Then

James:

So group think really is, it's when people are what's the, how can I put it?

JImmy:

I.

James:

When people are trying to hold the group together and make sure there isn't any dissent. Yeah, and that's

JImmy:

Yeah.

James:

it. So the easiest thing to do is to appoint a devil's advocate. Now, you might, in fairness, wants to rotate the the devil's advocate

JImmy:

Yeah. Yeah.

James:

a a big decision, say, today, Ben, or whatever your name is, it is your turn to be devil's advocate. We need you to down this decision and point out that everything that's wrong with it.

JImmy:

Is that, was that a, like a live example of your Ben or whatever your name was? It's like you can never remember people's names, can you? That's what happened to you once, didn't it,

James:

that is true.

JImmy:

Ben? Or whatever your name was.

James:

was trying to think of somebody whose name began with a, I should have gone with Alan, shouldn't I? And then gone with Ben and then gone with Charles. My point being you rotate it round, but I couldn't think of the beginning with.

JImmy:

You, you've pulled that one round, James?

James:

that. There is, I mean, there's a whole host of things associated with group think. Quite an interesting topic. I think we should do a separate podcast on group think, but that's the thing to do. Just get yourself a devil's advocate. Yeah. Another one, and it's the same sort of thing, like a good slang term is red teaming.

JImmy:

What's that?

James:

well, it's similar sort of thing, but once you've made a decision, bringing a team of experts and get them to challenge it really hard.

JImmy:

We used to do it in a medieval style, didn't we? And one organization worked in where we did star chambers to, really focus on, giving a real hard challenge to some of the projects that we had going on that worked. That worked well.

James:

Yeah, well it did, but I'm not terribly sure about the historical,

JImmy:

no, the historic connotations were not good, but the pr the principle of how it worked for us worked well.

James:

star chambers, but yeah. But yeah, it

JImmy:

Yeah.

James:

get somebody to change.

JImmy:

The next one you talked about was instinctive judgments.

James:

Alright. So a very simple one you will have heard of, but it is a pre-mortem. Which is effectively saying this has gone hideously wrong. Name, the reasons why it has gone hideously wrong. And it just forces people to think about all the things that are wrong. Yeah. So instead of it instinctive, it just forces people to think about, well, what could go wrong with this decision? And just widens your thinking. So a

JImmy:

Cool.

James:

Yeah.

JImmy:

Yeah.

James:

Another one about this one's deep. I've got this one off Google and I was researching, it's the 10, 10, 10 rule.

JImmy:

So I've used this. I have got,

James:

I

JImmy:

yeah.

James:

wet

JImmy:

No, well, it clearly is if I've used it, but I've got it in the front of my my notebook. Like, yeah.

James:

book.

JImmy:

Yeah. So when I'm writing notes and stuff like that,

James:

Why have you got a notebook? Is that

JImmy:

'cause I take lots of notes, I don't take a single note. You are, you're too proper. You take, let me take a notes. Whereas I take notes

James:

Yeah, go on.

JImmy:

in my notes book where I have lots of notes. I, yeah. So I like this.'cause this is just, it's a good way of thinking and framing stuff, isn't it?

James:

on.

JImmy:

You ask yourself these questions. How would you feel about this decision in 10 minutes? How would you feel about this decision in 10 months and how would you feel about this decision in 10 years?

James:

Well

JImmy:

forces you to think in different ways, doesn't it?

James:

go on to the 10 minutes. Makes me think.

JImmy:

Well, it's about your emotion in the moment, isn't it? And that's, and you can see that I'm doing this because of, I want to just shout at somebody. And, it's that classic. Don't press, press save, don't press send. It's that sort of thing,

James:

I 10 minute think before I talk to my daughters. Yeah, go on.

JImmy:

Yes. And then the 10 month one is just, it's the kind of relative short term consequences of your decision. So that gives time for things to play out. And the 10 year one is really long term. And I think what that often does for me is it just makes me think, I won't even remember this in 10, 10 years. You know what I mean? It's like I, I have a route. I want to kill you. I, I'm gonna rant. I'm gonna send you abusive email. In 10 years time, I don't even remember what we fell out about.

James:

Yeah, so it's

JImmy:

And that's the point, is all of a sudden you start thinking, oh, so my decision is how do I deal with this argument I'm having with James in 10 years? It's not gonna be important. And that it honestly brings you right down in terms of your worry and stress

James:

so which page in your notes book is this then?

JImmy:

The first one.

James:

Page one.

JImmy:

Just remind me,

James:

Very

JImmy:

open me notebook.

James:

And I think, I mean, the key thing here, I just, this is a bit tragic, one of the things I have done in the past, but it's about forcing yourself to stop and think. So even if you make a decision, yes, no decision, and then you flip a coin heads being yes and tails being no and just get that very active doing that to just. Force you just to think it through a little bit more. Yeah. Do I agree with this? So it is about stopping and thinking, so there you go. There are ways in which things can go wrong and ways to address them.

JImmy:

Okay.

James:

So the next one really, and maybe the most difficult one is too much information

JImmy:

Right.

James:

because oh, we love our mi Yeah.

JImmy:

Yeah. Yeah.

James:

I think I've said on this podcast before, but I was, for one, yeah. Glorious moment. My career, I was head of MI for a insurance company. And I used to produce this MI pack for a claims director, and I swear it was, I think it's about 153 pages long. And each page had four different graphs on, and each graph had probably three or four different pieces of information, and there was just reams of it, right? But we

JImmy:

Yeah.

James:

But didn't it help you because you can blind to it,

JImmy:

Well, I think I think the other thing I'd add into this is it's not just too much information. It's overthinking information, isn't it?'cause, you just get caught in analysis paralysis in this often, don't you?

James:

Yeah, absolutely. So how do you get around that? Well, it's obvious, but it's hard work. So one of the key things is prioritization.

JImmy:

Yeah.

James:

information do I need? Well, we used to work for a guy who used to say, tell me the three most important things. Yeah, he went on to big and bright things and he used to say, tell me the three most important things. But it was almost yeah. Forced you to say what are the most important things? There's a lovely one. It's not a lovely, it's horrible story about I do like

JImmy:

Yeah.

James:

This is my second nuclear disaster in one podcast. Yeah.

JImmy:

Hello. You have, you're full of the joys of spring. You aren't you?

James:

I should have been a nuclear scientist. There's a thought for you. When Chernobyl went, bang, one of the key things was they used to have something, I think it was called the operational reactivity margin or something like that, but

JImmy:

All right.

James:

it was how much stopping power is there on this nuclear reactor. The way they had, they got the number, but the way they had to calculate this was they used to have to walk over to a computer, which was 50 meters away, and

JImmy:

Yeah.

James:

to have to do about 10, 15 minutes worth of computation. And then they used to have to walk back and that was the number. And it turns out that was one of the most important numbers. that would've stopped the explosion if they had it. But they, it took 15 minutes to get it and it was a hundred meter round trek, people didn't get it. So now on the gian nuclear stations, so I'm told not that I've ever been in one. They have a little dial, which gives'em this instantaneously. So it is about having the most important piece of information there and there. Have I ever talked, go on about this? This is one of my favorite topics. Have I ever told you about my boss in the chocolate factory and the dials?

JImmy:

No.

James:

So to work in the chocolate factory and in this chocolate factory you can

JImmy:

James in the chocolate factory. It sounds like a

James:

yeah,

JImmy:

novel.

James:

there were lots of pipes, obviously, right? You have pipes with water and you

JImmy:

Yeah.

James:

with steam, pipes with chocolate, believe it or not, pipes with caramel pipes, every ware, right? on each of those pipes, they would have dials. And all of these have dials for temperature and dials for pressure and dials for. Flow to have things. Yeah. And the whole thing was just a massive of pipes and dials. And what he got us to do was go around that plant and we painted all of these steam pipes red and all of the water pipes blue and all of the chocolate pipes brown. So he knew exactly which pipe content was. And then the other thing he got us to do was take off every dial that we didn't flip in needs. And then the ones that we did need, he actually got us to paint a little red chevron on them. So we knew when the dial was pointing in the, when the arrow was pointing in the wrong way. So it just forced us to strip all of that stuff back. Now it's effort, right? Hard work, but it really helps you with your making decision metrics.

JImmy:

The other thing that I found helps with,

James:

supposed to go into. The other thing I found the way you're supposed to go is, Ooh, that's a really interesting story, James.

JImmy:

Oh, that was very interesting story, James.

James:

bother.

JImmy:

I'm still reading from the fact that you've got a story that I haven't actually heard.

James:

25 years in.

JImmy:

Ja James in the Chocolate Factory.

James:

surprised. I've told you that one.

JImmy:

It's all about painting

James:

the windmill? The kids' windmill.

JImmy:

the what?

James:

The kids' windmill.

JImmy:

No.

James:

Oh, there's one. I'll save that one for later. Everybody's, I should have left that right for the end of the podcast. It could have been like a cliffhanger. James and the children's windmill

JImmy:

James and the children's windmill. Sounds like the sort of thing you get locked up for, mate. No. The th thing that I found helpful was again, one of our previous bosses who when we got into that. Overthinking and too much information Spiral said to us, at the time we were working for a credit card company and he said, look, at the end of the day, if we get this wrong, it's not a matter of life or death. And I think that just made us think, actually, you're right. It's not that there's not consequence to your decisions, but it's not like we're, landing planes or doing heart surgery or anything like that. But I think sometimes we take things so seriously. We almost treat it like it's a matter of life or death, and then we ask for more and more information. You don't need it,

James:

And on the subject of heart surgery, I've got another story. You.

JImmy:

you? Well. So many fucking stories

James:

is a good story. You'll be thinking at the end of this, you'll say, oh, actually I can't edit that out.

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james_1_12-12-2025_164547:

now if you are, this is an interesting fact to me. If you're watching this on YouTube, did you know we've reached a tipping point on YouTube?

jimmy-barber_1_12-12-2025_164549:

We're going viral James.

james_1_12-12-2025_164547:

well, I'm not sure about that, but more people watch our podcast on YouTube than listen to it, which strikes me as a bit bizarre. I've got some sort of George Clooney thing going on. I think that's what it is. But anyway, before you start to say the Mick about my George Clooney lookalike

jimmy-barber_1_12-12-2025_164549:

was gonna just refer to your drug taking. You've gotta stop now. I've told you.

james_1_12-12-2025_164547:

If you. are watching this on YouTube, you will see we've had a slight continuity, error. In fact, you will notice if you have iPad had my Christmas haircut. Do you like that? Because when we

jimmy-barber_1_12-12-2025_164549:

Halfway. James has had a haircut.

james_1_12-12-2025_164547:

yeah.

jimmy-barber_1_12-12-2025_164549:

changed my clothes. The lighting's changed.

james_1_12-12-2025_164547:

Yeah,

jimmy-barber_1_12-12-2025_164549:

changed,

james_1_12-12-2025_164547:

because Jimmy, like a clown, managed to police cable out. So, um, I kept on talking and we didn't record anything he said.

jimmy-barber_1_12-12-2025_164549:

Back to it. So we talked about all the negative things that can happen, How about turning to the positive? James and you have got a model for us.

james_1_12-12-2025_164547:

a model I have So phase one is problem definition and data validation. So making sure you've got all the information you need to make a decision.

jimmy-barber_1_12-12-2025_164549:

So getting your shit in order. In other words,

james_1_12-12-2025_164547:

paused. Uh, phase two is once you made the decision, give it a good kicking to challenge the decision.

jimmy-barber_1_12-12-2025_164549:

yeah.

james_1_12-12-2025_164547:

three is just think about the risks and impacts of that decision, and if it goes wrong, what are you gonna do about it? So let me talk through that in some detail.

jimmy-barber_1_12-12-2025_164549:

Unpack your model, James.

james_1_12-12-2025_164547:

my model. it's like one of those unboxing videos. I never got my people watch those. But, Problem definition and data validation. So possibly the most important thing I actually, um, made a career out of this, but just ask yourself, what is the problem we are trying to solve and be really clear about it.

jimmy-barber_1_12-12-2025_164549:

And anyone who has ever worked with you through your long and illustrious career, ha knows you for that. Saying What the, what's the problem? You should have that on your gravestone.

james_1_12-12-2025_164547:

I'm thinking maybe a tattoo.

jimmy-barber_1_12-12-2025_164549:

Yeah.'cause you're a tattoo kind of guy, aren't you? You definitely a gravestone kind of guy. I know that for sure.

james_1_12-12-2025_164547:

drive Mrs. Law, the wild with excitement. What is the problem we are trying to solve? So there you go. That's the first question. Are you just really. Are you clear? Are you going after the root of the problem or are you just tackling symptoms to be really clear on that. Secondly, objectives, are you really clear what the goals are? Are they measurable? Does everybody agree by them? Do you know what good looks like out this decision?

jimmy-barber_1_12-12-2025_164549:

Yep.

james_1_12-12-2025_164547:

Third one, external data. So have you got at least one external expert view or somebody coming in who's, um, gonna contradict your initial assumptions? We talked about group thinking, confirmation

jimmy-barber_1_12-12-2025_164549:

Yep.

james_1_12-12-2025_164547:

something like that, but bring somebody in from outside. And then the final one part of this is your internal data. So is it prioritized and validated? And do you know what the three most important pieces of information are? Just prevent information overload. So that's the first thing. You know, said, get your shits together.

jimmy-barber_1_12-12-2025_164549:

The second phase was challenging the decision.

james_1_12-12-2025_164547:

Yeah. We talked about it briefly, make sure that you have got a devil's advocate and rotate that role around the team so people don't get a bad reputation from always being the awkward person. But again, that's the whole group thing. Address that.

jimmy-barber_1_12-12-2025_164549:

Yep.

james_1_12-12-2025_164547:

Second thing is just think about the sunk cost. Yeah. So if you were walked away from this project today, how much money would you lose? That's your scent cost. But don't let that be an influence on your decision to continue.'cause that has already gone. Yeah. So it's your sunk cost balancing.

jimmy-barber_1_12-12-2025_164549:

So many organizations I, I think I've worked for just get caught with that because it's, like throwing good money after bad, but leaders are so reluctant to admit that they're wrong. And they've made the wrong decision that they just carry on

james_1_12-12-2025_164547:

Yeah.

jimmy-barber_1_12-12-2025_164549:

don't just, accept the sunk cost is gone. Move on.

james_1_12-12-2025_164547:

Absolutely third bit, is the pre-mortem. So just assume that this project has failed spectacularly six months from now. If you've worked with me in the past, that's not too difficult to do, right? But just assume it's absolutely gone belly up. But then write down the top three reasons why.'cause I'll just get rid of over competence or force you to just think about what could go wrong. And finally just think about alternatives. Have you seriously analyzed at least two fundamentally different of action, or is it just variations idea?

jimmy-barber_1_12-12-2025_164549:

And, and the danger with not having options is you just tend to get into confirmation bias. You just tend to assume and bill the case for why your one option is the right option. So yeah, I can see the, value in that. And, do you want to unpack phase three for us, James?

james_1_12-12-2025_164547:

Let's unpack phase three.

jimmy-barber_1_12-12-2025_164549:

We sound quite like we know what we're talking about and we say that.

james_1_12-12-2025_164547:

Think about future consequences. Think about Jimmy's notes book 10, 10. Yeah. How are you gonna feel about this decision in 10 minutes, 10 months and 10 years? You know? Is the short term gain really worth the long term risk? Yeah. Make sure you've thought about an X six strategy. So if heaven forbid, your decision goes belly up, have a clear defined trigger point and a process for cutting your losses? And the final thing really is do the retina test. Just think to yourself, well, if this decision was printed on the front page of the paper or my mother heard about it, will I be proud or ashamed of it? So there you go. There's my simple checklist for high stakes decision making.

jimmy-barber_1_12-12-2025_164549:

High stakes decision domain sounds very good. I would add one final bit to that, which is a very simple bit of advice for me, and I think that we often get caught wanting to always be right and wanting to make the perfect decision. Doesn't exist. So I think that making a decision and then driving some action, that's where you start to learn. That's where you start to understand, are you right or wrong? And you can course correct. So my advice would be make the decision and learn from it.

james_1_12-12-2025_164547:

Oh, absolutely. Much better to do something small and learn from it than try and have perfection. I, um, once went to Toronto Old Life. Corporate Life has now I went to Toronto. And we landed at Toronto Airport. Had to get train into town. Roll up at Toronto Central Station and it was about three o'clock in the morning, UK town. And we'd going all day and we were absolutely, Bush and we just, there were three of us and we just got into a massive row about which way it was to the hotel. We'd all got our phones out, we'd all got Google Maps, we'd all got little blue dot going. And everyone's arguing about, it's this way, it's that way, it's the other way. What we eventually did is started walking and, you know, within about two minutes of walking, the blue dot moved and we realized we were going in the right direction.

jimmy-barber_1_12-12-2025_164549:

Exactly. Progress, not perfection. So we have talked about the fact that. The large portion of any manager's job is about making decisions. You told us some fantastic stories, James, about all of the things that can go wrong in decision making, you thoroughly depressed us with your many tales of disasters. But then unveiled James law's patented checklist for high stakes decision making.

james_1_12-12-2025_164547:

stake

jimmy-barber_1_12-12-2025_164549:

we talked about your three phases,

james_1_12-12-2025_164547:

Absolutely.

jimmy-barber_1_12-12-2025_164549:

Which are.

james_1_12-12-2025_164547:

which are. problem definition and data validation. Get your shit straight. Challenge the decision.

jimmy-barber_1_12-12-2025_164549:

Yeah,

james_1_12-12-2025_164547:

Don't be a pill. Number three, risk and impact assessment. Knowing full well it is gonna go wrong, what are gonna do when that happens?

jimmy-barber_1_12-12-2025_164549:

Well, hopefully everyone's enjoyed this episode on decision making and this is the last episode of the year. So we should just say a thank you to everyone for all your support throughout the year, and we hope that you and your families have a fantastic Christmas and New Year, and we'll see you back for some more exciting things to help you improve your enjoyment and performance of work somewhere in January.

james_1_12-12-2025_164547:

Super.

jimmy-barber_1_12-12-2025_164549:

Thanks everyone.

james_1_12-12-2025_164547:

Cheers now.

Speaker 7:

We cover a whole host of topics on this podcast from purpose to corporate jargon, but always focused on one thing, getting the job done well, easier said than done. So if you've got. Unhappy customers or employees, bosses or regulators breathing down your neck. If your backlogs are outta control and your costs are spiraling and that big IT transformation project that you've been promised, just keeps failing to deliver, we can help. If you need to improve your performance, your team's performance, or your organizations, get in touch at Jimmy at@jobdonewell.com orJames@jobdonewell.com.

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James Lawther

Co-host
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Jimmy Barber

Co-host