Decision Making Diamond 02

Thinking Styles

Group decision making is what a great deal of business and work is about. If you’re part of a team or organisation then your work will involve deciding on a course of action and this is best done as a group effort…but it’s not without its difficulties. The Decision Making Diamond is an excellent tool for mapping the phases of the process and introducing a discipline into these decision discussions and avoiding arguments and wasted energy. In this thinkspot, you’ll discover. In Part 1 we introduced the model as a map for the group to work with. In this thinkspot it gets personal. You’ll be looking at the thinking styles that make the process harder or easier for you and others. You’ll learn

• Three fundamental thinking styles and how these map to the diamond model
• What characterises each style and makes it both an asset and a potential liability
• The soft and hard dimensions of each of the three styles
• A shared language that will help teams work with each other at each phase
• Another way of thinking about “team types”
• The language and phrases that illustrate the style in action
• Cues and clues to help the facilitator (and the participants) notice what style is in play

Group decision making is about influencing. Where more than one person is involved in the decision, one or more persons have to be influenced to concur or “buy in” to the decision. But what if you’re not even in the team? Next time we’ll look at how you build a strategy for influencing when more than one person has to say “yes” and you don’t even know them.