The Three D’s to Better Decisions

Quick Insight

1. Dialogue: Honest and rich dialog
2. Divergence: Divergence of thought to consider multiple perspectives and ideas
3. Dynamics: Decision cultures that promote flexibility, agility, risk-taking, and honesty

I provide many resources to help you avoid business decision mistakes. You may think that you can easily avoid them after learning about them. This is yet another decision mistake.

In “You’re About to Make a Terrible Mistake,” Olivier Sibony contends that we can learn to reduce mistakes with much practice in one area. Still, we fail to apply that knowledge in many other areas. We can’t even see the full range of how we make these mistakes. We can’t fix problems we can’t see. 

He suggests that we must collaborate with others. Others can more easily see our biases, and we can more clearly see theirs, so the group can mitigate them.

This collaboration must be a process that fosters three things:

1. Dialogue: Honest and rich dialog
2. Divergence: Divergence of thought to consider multiple perspectives and ideas
3. Dynamics: Decision cultures that promote flexibility, agility, risk-taking, and honesty

How do you specifically do these things? I heartily recommend Sibony’s book. He lists 40 techniques.

- Rob Stephens
Founder of CFO Perspective and the Finance and Strategy Toolkit (FAST)

Further Insight

CFO Perspective Resources

• Video: How To Avoid Business Decision-Making Mistakes - I explain some common business decision-making mistakes and how to overcome them.
• Course: Behavioral Finance Make better decisions to get more of what you really want.

Get all the CFO Perspective resources with a FAST (Finance and Strategy Toolkit) membership.