Improve Decision Making During Uncertainty: Top 3 Steps

Improve Decision Making During Uncertainty — A Skill that Matters
At its core, decision-making is the act of choosing between two or more courses of action. In the workplace, sound decisions require a deliberate process: identifying the decision, gathering relevant information, engaging the right stakeholders, and evaluating potential options.

The ultimate goal is to achieve a desired outcome in a deliberate and effective way. Both the intended result and the approach to achieving it should guide every step of the decision-making process, particularly when uncertainty is high.

But What If…
Some decisions are straightforward. Others are anything but. What happens when you can’t gather all the relevant information, the desired outcome is unclear, or stakeholders have competing agendas? How do you choose between two valid but opposing options — such as cutting costs versus investing more time with customers?

Strategic decision making simulation data confirms that, as complexity and stakes rise, decision-making becomes:

• More difficult.
• More stressful.

At the same time, organizational culture assessments find that many leaders are moving away from centralized decision making and pushing decision authority closer to the work. Employees are expected to make more judgment calls in their roles and to contribute to decisions that affect the broader workforce. When done well, this autonomy significantly improves performance and employee engagement. When done poorly, it amplifies confusion and risk.

Navigating this tension is what separates effective decision-making cultures from the rest.

Leadership’s Role in Decision Making
Leaders are responsible for creating the conditions that enable sound decision-making. That means shaping the environment, building the necessary capabilities, and instilling the confidence for individuals and teams to make good decisions — even amid strategic ambiguity and high stakes. Effective leaders ensure that decisions are made:

• In the right way.
• At the right level.
• At the right speed to move the organization forward.

To Improve Decision Making During Times of Uncertainty, Put First Things First

To help employees navigate toward the “right” decision, let’s begin with the basics:

1. Set the Stage with Strategic Clarity
   Effective decision-making begins with a shared understanding of the organization’s strategy for success. Our organizational alignment research shows that strategic clarity accounts for 31% of the performance gap between high- and low-performing teams.
   
   A clear, well-understood, and believable strategy provides the context necessary for effective change and sound decisions. It aligns assumptions, priorities, and decision rights so people start from the same place.
   
   When strategic ambiguity, misalignment, or unresolved conflict exist, decision-making will suffer. Clarity is the foundation on which good decisions are built.
2. Invest in Building Decision Making Capabilities
   Organizations improve decision quality by deliberately building decision-making capability. Provide targeted training that teaches employees how to clearly define the decision at hand, apply a consistent decision-making process, and communicate decisions in ways that build commitment and buy-in.
   
   Effective decision making training programs go beyond theory. They examine past decisions and focus on upcoming, high-stakes choices that matter to the business. Using realistic scenarios, participants practice making trade-offs between multiple “good” options — the reality of most leadership decisions.
   
   Like a project post-mortem, each decision should be reviewed with timely, specific feedback and space for reflection. This reflection should examine not only the outcome, but also the decision process itself — including the impact on culture, strategy, financial performance, colleagues, and customers.
3. Create Meaningful Reinforcement Mechanisms
   Like any behavior change, improved decision-making requires consistent, visible, and meaningful reinforcement to become embedded in how work gets done.
   
   Recognize and reward the behaviors you want to see, and apply proportionate consequences when new expectations are ignored. Leaders and high performers must visibly model the decision-making principles they expect others to follow. Just as importantly, employees need a clear line of sight into how their decisions connect to the organization’s broader strategy and culture.
   
   Reinforcement turns decision-making from an initiative into a habit.

The Bottom Line
In times of uncertainty, the decisions you make carry outsized weight. How you choose in ambiguous situations — especially when multiple options appear viable — can significantly influence both performance and morale. The real question is whether you are doing enough to equip your employees with the skills, clarity, and confidence to make better decisions when it matters most.

To learn more about how to improve decision making during uncertainty, download 3 Proven Steps to Set Your Team Up to Make Better Decisions

by Tristam Brown: CEO

Tristam Brown is an executive business consultant and organizational development expert with more than three decades of experience helping organizations accelerate performance, build high-impact teams, and turn strategy into execution. As CEO of LSA Global, he works with leaders to get and stay aligned™ through research-backed strategy, culture, and talent solutions that produce measurable, business-critical results. See full bio.