On decision-making, the method, and what organisations get wrong when they try to manage "risk" instead of deciding.
A structured before-and-after review of a decision already made. Not a post-mortem. Not a lessons-learned exercise. A method for understanding what was assumed, what changed, and what the decision-maker would do differently.
Enron had one. Boeing had one. The Australian banks had dozens. The apparatus was fully assembled and fully useless when it mattered most.
Decision coaching is not more analysis. It is a structured process that makes you work through your own reasoning until it holds up or falls apart.
The $80,000 consultant report was designed to demonstrate due diligence, not to help you decide. Here is what actually works.
A tribute to Roger Estall, co-author of Deciding, who saved more lives in New Zealand than anyone else. He passed away on 21 June 2023.
On the Universal Decision-Making Method and why mastery of it distinguishes successful from unsuccessful decision-makers.
A three-part conversation on risk management, decision-making, and five decades of advisory practice, hosted by Mark Siwik at SandRun Risk.
A critique of the Institute of Internal Auditors’ updated model and why it still fails to address how organisations actually decide.
Why enterprise risk management frameworks did not and could not help organisations decide what to do about COVID-19. The pandemic proved the apparatus useless.
Roger Estall on why the real question is not who assesses risk, but whether the organisation actually makes good decisions and how it would know.
How an informal label for diverse, conflicting concepts acquired the appearance of something of substance, and why it weighs organisations down.
Everyone who has some part in determining how an organisation takes advantage of its opportunities is a Decider. From the board room to the work face.
Every organisation possesses an underlying reason for existence. Every decision must connect to it or risk drifting into failure.
Monitoring means checking that what was assumed when the decision was made is what is occurring. Decisions are not fire and forget.
Skilled decision-makers reduce organisational vulnerability, recognise opportunities emerging from disruption, and build monitoring into every decision.