Tip of the Week

Decisions

Don’t assume that your decisions are self-evident. Often decision-makers spend many hours arriving at a decision after carefully weighing alternatives. They often fail to remember that their audience hasn’t gone through this process of contemplation and analysis of options. Consequently they focus on communicating the facts and decisions, not the process and rationale.

So What?

Communicators who think their decisions are self-evident are often perturbed by questions about those decisions. Sharing your rationale and the process you’ve gone through provides insight to coworkers and employees about how the decision was made. It also helps them experience—in an abbreviated manner–the deliberation and reflection that went into the decision.