We claim that social decision making is the easiest way to improve productivity in knowledge work. We also say that the best tool to do this with is Fingertip. We can give and teach you a tool. But the fact is that Fingertip and better decisions is a journey as are all new ways of working. We come to the power of organizational culture and how you as a leader can be a key player in the productivity leap.

Creating a strong social decision making culture

1. Encourage people to share ideas, problems, emotional intelligence

Make sure employees know their suggestions will be taken seriously by peers and superiors.

2. Build brainswarming into each decision
Solicit feedback from group members at key decision points to ensure vital information is never overlooked.

3. Encourage important communication & collaborate

Document plans and key discussions to eliminate the “he said/she said” nature of spontaneous conversation.

4. Assign roles & adjust group sizes

Keep decision groups large enough to avoid tunnel vision but small enough to preserve a close-knit dynamics where everyone knows each other. Ensure everybody knows what’s expected from them.

5. Resist the urge to direct

If you are the Boss, allow employees to contribute and tackle problems on their own before immediately jumping in with a solution. Your people become empowered and passionate about their work once they have a say, feel the meaning and engage.

6. Nurture, reuse, relate, and summarize decisions

No decision is born alone. Record and complete activities in decisions, reuse beneficial decisions as templates and create connections to related decisions. Finally group related decisions in plans.

7. Timing is everything

After reasonable incubation of the problem or idea at hand it is time to set timing for the progress of the decision making. The timetable creates the necessary sense of urgency among the stakeholders.

8. Honor diversity of opinions

Decide how to decide. Remember that your organizational culture and your own attitude decides how openly people want to express their opinions and on the other hand are ready to get influenced.

9. Evaluate & Learn

The only way to learn from poor decisions is to evaluate them and detect the places where you have errors in understanding and find new routes to overcome them in the future.