It is estimated that the average American adult makes somewhere in the neighborhood of 35,000 decisions every day. For sure most of these decisions are quite mundane, such as which pair of socks you put on and then which foot you choose to “sock” first. However, from a business context this means that your employees, each and every one of them, are making thousands if not tens of thousands of decisions a day.
With that thought in mind, how many of these decisions are consistent with policies or best practices? Do you even have policies covering many of these decisions? These are two different questions and I will address the second one first.
I used to work for a unionized paper manufacturer and on occasion the union would threaten to work to the rules. This did happen on occasion and the net result was to show management just how little in the way of process and procedure that was actually documented. We had procedures for everything and policy manuals all over the place, but it didn’t take long to realize that we didn’t cover every situation and in fact most situations that workers deal with every day are not covered in any policy or procedure.
Even when you do have policies and procedures, the question comes up as to how consistently decisions are made. For example, studies show that hungry judges rule differently depending on how long it’s been since they’ve eaten.
So, what to do? I think you know where I’m headed here by this point. Automating repetitive decisions is a great way to not only create policy, but ensure it’s consistent execution. We have helped clients manage everything from IT purchase approvals to inventory stocking decisions. Even when automation gets you only 80% there, it’s still a huge time saver and will ensure a consistent and stable process. Contact us today to talk about your decision automation opportunity at sales@decisions.com.
