The Hunt

Good decision-making isn’t inherent. To have employees who make good decisions, you need to give them the knowledge and resources they need. When your team learns to make decisions quickly, there can be long-term benefits.

From our executive search experiences, the companies that succeed and grow the fastest are the ones that train and empower their staff to make fast, good decisions.

But good decision-making isn’t innate. There will be bumps along the road, especially in the beginning. But if you give them the tools they need to succeed, then hold them accountable, you’ll have a stronger organization — and more engaged employees! According to Gallup, employee engagement is the involvement and enthusiasm of employees in their work and workplace. Employee engagement helps you measure and manage employees’ perspectives on the crucial elements of your workplace culture.

1. Invest in your staff

In order to make a fast decision, employees have to feel confident. They need training. They need to learn the operations inside and out. And they need to work with high-level producers and learn from first-hand experiences.

So it’s an investment to include staff on big projects. Ask for their opinions. First, put them in charge of smaller projects that aren’t too time consuming. This will help them get comfortable in their roles and give them the confidence to speak up and make decisions. Once an employee has had a high level of training and really understands the business, you can encourage them to go with their gut reaction when making decisions.

2. Give staff your confidence

Employees need to know you believe in them. That doesn’t mean that every decision they make will be the right one, especially in the beginning. So they need to know they can make mistakes without the floor falling out from under them.

When mistakes happen, stay away from the blame game. Discuss them openly with the entire team, and focus on the opportunity to learn. Help everyone learn from each other so those mistakes won’t be made again.

3. Role-play

This is one of the best ways to help employees develop their decision-making skills. Run through what a meeting or phone call with a client could look like. Go over a presentation before it has to be given at a meeting.

Ask follow-up questions and push back. Point out certain things a client or coworker might point out. Don’t be afraid to put staff on the spot, because you want them to be as prepared as possible ahead of time. Afterward, offer feedback and give tangible explanations for how they can improve next time around.

4. Don’t be a bottleneck

Once you’ve trained employees that it’s their call, take a step back and give them autonomy. The purpose of training staff to make the right decisions quickly is to eliminate yourself from the process. When your employees own their decisions, they’re more likely to take pride in them.

On any typical workday, we are faced with hundreds of choices about how to spend our time.  Interrupting workplace distractions come in waves—regular, ever-present, taking on forms like coworkers, smartphones, and unnecessary meetings.  We may physically be at work for eight hours, but how many of these hours are productive? Interrupting workplace distractions is becoming more and more important these days.

Finding the right team members is an important part of this process. The recruiters at Artemis can provide a free consultation to explore how we can customize a search to help you find people that can be valuable team members in your organization.