Strategic Decision-Making for Managers in a Market Economy

Last week, I posted about data strategies’ tendency to focus on the data itself, overlooking the (data-driven) decisioning process itself. All it not lost. First, it is appropriate that the majority of the focus remains on the supply of high-quality #data relative to the perceived demand for it through the lenses of specific use cases. But there is an opportunity to complement this by addressing the decisioning process itself. 7 initiatives you can consider: 1) Create a structured decision-making framework that integrates data into the strategic decision-making process. This is a reusable framework that can be used to explain in a variety of scenarios how decisions can be made. Intuition is not immediately a bad thing, but the framework raises awareness about its limitations, and the role of data to overcome them. 2) Equip leaders with the skills to interpret and use data effectively in strategic contexts. This can include offering training programs focusing on data literacy, decision-making biases, hypothesis development, and data #analytics techniques tailored for strategic planning. A light version could be an on-demand training. 3) Improve your #MI systems and dashboards to provide real-time, relevant, and easily interpretable data for strategic decision-makers. If data is to play a supporting role to intuition in a number of important scenarios, then at least that data should be available and reliable. 4) Encourage a #dataculture, including in the top executive tier. This is the most important and all-encompassing recommendation, but at the same time the least tactical and tangible. Promote the use of data in strategic discussions, celebrate data-driven successes, and create forums for sharing best practices. 5) Integrate #datascientists within strategic planning teams. Explore options to assign them to work directly with executives on strategic initiatives, providing data analysis, modeling, and interpretation services as part of the decision-making process. 6) Make decisioning a formal pillar of your #datastrategy alongside common existing ones like data architecture, data quality, and metadata management. Develop initiatives and goals focused on improving decision-making processes, including training, tools, and metrics. 7) Conduct strategic data reviews to evaluate how effectively data was used. Avoid being overly critical of the decision-makers; the goal is to refine the process, not question the decisions themselves. Consider what data could have been sought at the time to validate or challenge the decision. Both data and intuition have roles to play in strategic decision-making. No leap in data or #AI will change that. The goal is to balance the two, which requires investment in the decision-making process to complement the existing focus on the data itself. Full POV ➡️ https://lnkd.in/e3F-R6V7

The "Value Triangle" helped my client discover $4.7M in bottom-line impact. But when we first spoke, she was drowning. ❌ A revenue shortfall ❌ A depleted leadership team ❌ Six high-stakes decisions waiting for her OK. Sound familiar? Mid-market CEOs live in a pressure cooker: → Relentless demand for growth → 3x more decisions than their enterprise peers → Limited resources, infinite complexity Here’s the truth: ⛔️ You can’t make every decision. (You shouldn’t even try.) After coaching 100s of such leaders, I’ve seen one pattern kill value faster than any market headwind: 🤯 Decision overwhelm. I’ve lived it too—burning out trying to be my team’s “decision hero.” That's when I developed "The Value Triangle"—a simple framework that helps leaders identify their most critical decisions and protect their most valuable asset: 👉 Attention. 3 Types Of CEO Decisions (The "Value Triangle") 1️⃣ Value CREATORS (20%) These are strategic decisions that massively impact value creation: → Entering a new market → Hiring or firing key execs → Major capital allocation decisions ✅ Make these yourself. This is where you lead. 2️⃣ Value NEUTRALS (50%) Operational decisions that keep things moving: → Quarterly planning sign-offs → Budget reviews and course corrections → Internal communications rhythm 🛠️ Build frameworks. Then delegate the follow-through. 3️⃣ Value DRAINS (30%) Low-leverage calls that kill momentum: → Vague meeting requests → Minor expense approvals → Unfiltered personnel issues ❌ Eliminate, automate, or delegate completely. ↳ Back to my client: Before: 65% of her time was spent on "Value Drains." After: 65% spent on "Value Creators." In just 90 days she: → Cut 22 standing meetings → Delegated 90% of “neutral” decisions to her SLT → Unlocked 2 hours per day for deep work The result? → +11% revenue growth → 3x faster decision velocity → +26% team engagement → $4.7M in unrealized value Her words: “For the first time in years, I feel like I’m actually leading—not just reacting.” The formula isn’t complicated, but it's easily overlooked: ❇️ Right decisions → Right people → Right timing = Value. That's why my High Growth Leadership Academy starts with decision-making mastery. In high-growth environments, leaders who make consistently smart decisions fast are the ones who win. So, what value "Drain" will you eliminate this week? 👇 Drop it below. Let's grow together. — ♻️ Repost if you know a CEO who needs to reclaim their decision bandwidth. ➕ Follow me (Ben Sands) for strategies and tactics to help mid-market leaders scale without burning out.

If you’re: • Entering a new market with an existing service • Launching a new offering • Capturing market share during times of disruption Here are the 3 lenses I review with clients in order to make strategic decisions on where to invest time, energy, personnel and money to grow their company Lens 1: Historical Context & Qualification Here’s what to look for:  • What measurable, fact only (no opinion) data points can validate this opportunity’s viability? • Does the new market fit your criteria (and align with your capabilities)? • What’s the risk vs. upside and how do we quantify both? This can help you easily eliminate bad ideas you thought were opportunities. Lens 2: The Future Since no one can predict the future, you have to go further than just reviewing market trends and forecast reports (which are valuable in themselves) Here you must identify first, second and third order consequences of what might potentially happen. As you review each potential consequence, you have to process how that may affect you. A simple way to do this is by asking “if this were true, how would this affect X” Since we’re dealing with hypotheticals, we’ll tie this thinking to Lens 3 to keep it grounded. Lens 3: Unchanging Principles Principles are laws or foundational blocks that never change regardless of the situation. For example, the law of gravity does not change over time or space (or even if you believe it may not exist, it will still work!) Your job here is to identify what principles are at play with  • your market • your offering • the opportunity you’re looking to enter into  • the external forces at play (macro economic, social, consumer behavior) Once you’ve identified the principles at play, you use them to anchor your thinking from lens 1 & 2 back to reality and create working hypothesis. Then all that’s left is to make your move, measure, optimize etc. 

WFM & Strategic Planning: Decision Making In high-performing organizations, WFM analysts are encouraged to do more than just push buttons--they're expected to recommend courses of action based on the data presented. They're also not often trained in decision making in a consistent manner. Harvard Business School Professor Leonard Schlesinger states "most managers view decision-making as a single event, rather than a process." This is absolutely true for WFM. There are a number of decisions that happen in every staff plan, schedule generation, intraday management team that affects the result. Strategic planning requires strong decisions in advance to enable good decisions when the action takes place. Here are some suggestions to help out. 1) Establish the Goal(s) & Stakeholders. The organization & stakeholders determine the business goals, so using that information, you can determine goals for WFM. Financial considerations, employee impacts, all of this should be explicitly spelled out or implicitly understood. The first is preferred for the paper trail for accountability. 2) Prioritize. Based on the goals & stakeholders affected, frame the timelines & deliverables for creating the plan and executing it. 3) Establish Decision Making Authority. Who decides if the plan you're developing should go forward? Knowing your target decider will help with your approach & you can adjust your plan proactively. Also, if possible, empower people to make a decision (part of #5). 4) Create an Approach. Establish the ground rules for what you're going to do. Often this is as simple as a list of things to do in the order they need to be accomplished but it could require a more formal project plan if it's a complex situation. 5) Determine Options: This has two aspects. First, the plan and what happens when things go as expected. What do you need to do or not do? But also, for when things don't go as planned, what are your options? If shrink is high or SL is being missed, what recommended actions should happen?