The choices your team make when presented with the need for a decision, are determined by the options they have available.

These options might include:

• Doing what I’ve always done.
• Doing what my last boss wanted me to do.
• Doing what I think the person in front of me wants.
• Doing nothing.

If any of these options are exactly what you want to happen whenever this decision is required, great. You can trust to luck and let your team get on with it.

If not, you need to do something to help your team choose the right thing to do.

You could, I suppose, list out every single option against every single potential situation, and make your team choose from this list every time. This would not only be tedious to draw up and robotic to put into practice, it could never be comprehensive enough, so you’d still end up with occasions where a team member has to fall back on their original options.

Much better to provide a framework that gives your team the ability to make whatever choice seems most appropriate at the time, knowing that whatever it is, it will be good for whoever is in front of them, good for your business and good for them.

How do you do this?

Well, you start with what I call your Promise of Value. A definition of what you do to benefit the people you serve, that includes information on how the business behaves, even when nobody’s looking.

This can act as a kind of compass when making decisions. What you do to benefit the people you serve is your True North, the behaviours dictate how you go about getting there. Whether you’re Penelope Pitstop or Dick Dastardly.

If I know where I’m heading, and I know how I am allowed to behave, I’ve limited my options, without specifying my choices. I can come up with all sorts of decisions that have never been seen before, which all keep the business’s Promise. I can be flexible and consistent.

Discipline literally makes Daring possible.

No need to trust to luck.