Dear Reader,
Making decisions in an international meeting are not all that easy. In this case, you are dealing with higher levels of ambiguity and complexity. Also, intercultural diversity and different attitudes to decision-making vary. Some will expect a group-finding process to a decision, others will want a hierarchal decision process.
Checklist
Here is a short checklist on designing a decision process for your international meetings:
- Discuss and agree a decision-making process as part of your meeting. Commit to these rules.
- Collect quality information for your meetings. Question the meaning of all data and information brought to the meeting table.
- Decide according to a vision. Small, effective decisions are better than a large, ineffective one.
- Commit to implement the decisions made after the meeting. Often people go back to their business units and nothing happens, because either they don’t want to or can’t. Good networking skills and getting on the telephone are important to get decisions implemented.
- Dedicate the last five minutes of the meeting to feedback and review success. How effective was the process? Did anybody dominate the process? Does everybody understand?
Most importantly, decide what works for you in your role. The result will be more effective decision-making.
Kind regards,
Nelly Thomas