Decision Map

What?

Use the Decision Map to help you understand considerations that influence decisions. Explore the World View that forms the foundation of a decision. Identify the Rules, regulations, and expectations that shape the decision. Clarify the Reality or evidence you have that supports and informs the decision.

So What?

Whether you face your next important decision or want to understand someone else’s decision, the Decision Map offers three questions to ask about the dynamics that shape that decision. “World view” invites you to consider the impact of the perspectives, values, experiences, and beliefs that drive the decision. Second, if you understand the Rules that bound the decision, they be documented and codified, issues as regulations or authorizations, or expressed in agreements or expectations. Finally, the Decision Map asks you to consider the Reality that informs any decision. That Reality is the context for a decision and reflects perceived conditions, explicit data and information, or a combination of those. Insights into the Reality of a decision informs your action to support or detract from that decision.

Now What?

If you understand the Decision Map, you are better able to explore the multiple sides of a question and make the decision that is most fit for function. You can use the Decision Map to inform your work to:

• Address complex issues across your organization
  • Support staff and Board members through mergers
  • Change the culture to support patterns of resilience and innovation

• Facilitates collaborative planning and decision making
  • Build coalitions across organizational or political divisions
  • Create adaptive plans for systemic organizational change

• Understand and influence patterns of performance
  • Examine and shift patterns of employee engagement
  • Plan for effective meetings that engage diverse participants

• Resolve conflicts among individuals or groups
  • Help individuals understand how their own perceptions contribute to conflict
  • Engage groups in open dialogue about leveraging their differences for the good of the group

• Learn from the past to influence your own patterns and decisions
  • Explore assumptions that have influenced your decisions in the past
  • Gain insight into the Rules and expectations that drive your decision