The Advice Decision Model

Here's a primer about how decisions get made at Skookum.

We use a model of decision making called the advice decision model, and it's fairly unique. Not many people are familiar with it. So it can be an adjustment for folks when they come to work or serve on the board at Skookum.

But, most people are familiar with a hierarchical decision model, so I'll use that as reference point. In a hierarchical decision model, decisions are usually made by the person in the organization who is most experienced making those kinds of choices. Often the leader of a particular working group who has lots of experience and knowledge about that specific domain.

This kind of structure is optimized to reduce mistakes, because the most knowledgeable people are making the decisions. However, it creates a bottleneck at that person's desk. So the front line staff, who are carrying out the decisions, are sometimes frozen waiting for a decision to be made. So it's slower, but less likely to produce incorrect decisions.

An advice decision model is opposite in many ways. In the advice decision model, decisions are made by the individual in the organization who is MOST affected by the results of that choice.

And the person MOST affected, is often NOT the person with the most experience.

However, that person, and in fact NOBODY can make a decision without first getting advice from 2 groups of people.

1.) Anybody else who is also affected by the decision.
2.) Anybody who might have knowledge or experience who could inform the decision.

Since decisions are made more broadly across the organization by the people most affected by the results of the decisions, it tends not to produce the decision making bottlenecks. So it means we can make choices faster.

However, it also means we're going to make more bad decisions. We just are. If the most experienced people aren't making all the decisions, people are going to make the wrong call.

A heirarchical decision model is optimized to reduce mistakes. An advise decision model is optimized to maximize speed and learning.

Now, consulting broadly, getting the advice required by our decision making model, should have an error reduction impact. But not always.

There are a few challenges with an advice decision model.

For one, sometimes it can be unclear who the decider should be. Sometimes multiple people are affected by a decision in practically identical ways. Overcoming that ambiguity requires communication.

Second, managers in an organization using an advice decision model, act more like coaches or mentors. They do not and even cannot exercise control over decisions. If they do, we are not in advice decision making mode we've become a heirarchy again.

Now, in some decisions that have safety related outcomes or in a crisis, we may choose to do that, but generally we try to be disciplined about really and truely delegating real decision making power to the people most impacted by the results of the choice.

So managers at Skookum have to master a manuever that we call object and commit. That is, when someone who reports you to has a choice to make and they have followed protocol and sought you advice, you must be clear and specific and direct about your concerns. But, refrain from overruling them. And if they chose to do something that you wouldn't have, you have to get fully behind what you believe to be an incorrect choice. That's hard. And not everybody can do it. Not everybody can be an effective manager in an advise decision model.

And probably most importantly, using the advise decision model means that we have to get really really good at giving and receiving high quality feedback. This whole thing falls apart if we're unable to get the expertise from one part of the organization into the hands of the decision makers who can benefit from it.

Which means we must be giving high quality, direct, specific, concrete feedback, and a lot of it. And we've all got to be really good at hearing the input and criticism from our peers while maintaining a posture of teamwork, understanding that our colleagues want us to succeed and are doing their best to help us.

So. The Advice decision model. That's how it works here.