The best leaders I know understand that precise planning, effective decisions and timely actions rely on dependable information. They make decisions by gathering evidence, asking the right questions, verifying presumed facts and deciphering vast amounts of data. So why, then, in this over-information age, do so many plans fail?
I see an alarming number of leaders ignore the facts needed to make sound decisions. Plans suffer when:
- Leaders ignore available information.
- Necessary data aren’t acquired in time to make decisions.
- Data are available, but leaders fail to analyze them appropriately.
- Leaders may choose to overlook key details.
The Key Details
Why would leaders choose to overlook key details? Maybe it’s not consciously deliberate…
As Harvard Business School Professor Max H. Bazerman, PhD, wrote in The Power of Noticing: What the Best Leaders See (Simon & Schuster, 2015), thinking can be broken down into two primary categories: intuitive and deliberative.
We employ intuitive thinking during crises, when immediacy is required. Our thinking is instantaneous, with emotion as a factor, and it produces reactionary responses. We make use of immediate information, or that which initially impacts our senses. Sudden information is generally incomplete, incorporating whatever is available at the moment.
By contrast, leaders sift through information, take time to gather data and draw conclusions when employing deliberative thinking. Such thinking is reasoned and structured, diving deep into the issues at hand. We gather data from non-immediate sources, compiling and assessing it to make a more systematic evaluation.
Leaders frequently—and unnecessarily—put themselves in the intuitive-thinking mode, Dr. Bazerman asserts. They over-rely on speed, neglecting to step back and analyze data. Consequently, they avoid doing sufficient research and make ill-informed decisions and plans.
Leaders fail to use information efficiently in three distinct ways, each with a specific cause and solution. I’ll explore these in my next series of posts. In the meantime, what do you think? What has been your experience with overlooking key details? I’d love to hear from you. You can call me at 561-582-6060, let’s talk. And as always, I can be reached here, or on LinkedIn.
