Dawna Jones

In a business environment of complexity and uncertainty, excellent decision-making skills are paramount. Employees, customers, and others touched by a company's actions respond to what they trust — ethical decision-making in business has become a strategic asset. Learn how to communicate decisions effectively, how to make faster and more informed decisions on the fly, and how to incorporate your core values into your decision-making.

Consensus is a group decision-making process in which the final outcome requires agreement by all parties involved. To gain consensus, you invite diverse perspectives so that the groups can explore the issue from different angles. Consensus adds value by building support and commitment for implementation of a decision and action plan.

Emotional and social data arising from interpersonal relationships and the degree of happiness or stress directly impact decision-making. The data that reaches the brain from the heart has been well documented to affect mental functions. The heart performs an important role that goes beyond pumping blood. The heart’s 40,000 neurons are a complex information-processing center, able to sense, regulate, and remember.

In years past, just about any self-respecting scientist stayed well away from any sort of study of intuition because it was seen as some New Age-y pseudoscience. And for years, this neglect resulted in the perception that intuition is mystical, relied on by people who 1) make decisions using emotion instead of rational logic, and 2) seek the advice of mediums.

Demands and expectations — and how those things are communicated — affect everyone in a company: clients, customers, coworkers, employees, and so on. In very tense settings, the pressure and ensuing stress can put people at risk, both emotionally and physically. When you notice that working relationships aren’t heading in a positive direction, take action to reduce the pressure by lightening things up.

When you are limited by time, money, resources, or expertise, partnerships and joint ventures can be of tremendous value. In a joint venture, two companies agree to combine their resources to accomplish a specific task, and the venture exists for a specific time period. Joint ventures provide companies large and small with expanded capacity to reach new markets or to market products and services.

Core values reflect what is important to your company. They serve as the unshakeable foundation for what your company stands for in good and bad times. When integrated into decision-making, core values are part of decision-makers' mindsets at every level in the company. Consider core values the nonnegotiable part of your company's reputation, sustained by the commitment of executives and employees at every level to live those values in their decision-making and in their relationships with company personnel, customers, suppliers, and communities.

Can you make decisions swiftly and confidently when vast amounts of data cross your desk and inbox every day? How do you prioritize and rapidly respond in the midst of changing conditions? Well, you use the skills you already possess but may not be tapping into.Here's an interesting correlation: The way you process information as you drive a vehicle works for making an informed decision, as well.

When you're communicating a decision, you need to know that you have successfully communicated the basic message. You also want everyone on the team to share an understanding of what the target results are so that, in the event that something unexpected happens, everyone knows what to do. The worst time to find out that you and your team are not on the same page is after you've communicated a decision and tasked your team with implementing that decision.