Skip to Main Content
HBS Online
  • Courses
    Open Courses Mega Menu
    • Business Essentials
      • Credential of Readiness (CORe)
      • Business Analytics
      • Economics for Managers
      • Financial Accounting
    • Leadership & Management
      • Leadership Principles
      • Management Essentials
      • Negotiation Mastery
      • Organizational Leadership
      • Strategy Execution
      • Power and Influence for Positive Impact
    • Entrepreneurship & Innovation
      • Entrepreneurship Essentials
      • Disruptive Strategy
      • Negotiation Mastery
      • Design Thinking and Innovation
    • Strategy
      • Strategy Execution
      • Business Strategy
      • Economics for Managers
      • Disruptive Strategy
      • Global Business
      • Sustainable Business Strategy
    • Finance & Accounting
      • Financial Accounting
      • Leading with Finance
      • Alternative Investments
      • Sustainable Investing
    • Business in Society
      • Sustainable Business Strategy
      • Global Business
      • Sustainable Investing
      • Power and Influence for Positive Impact
    • All Courses
  • For Organizations
    Open For Organizations Mega Menu
    • Corporate Learning
      Help your employees master essential business concepts, improve effectiveness, and expand leadership capabilities.
    • Academic Solutions
      Integrate HBS Online courses into your curriculum to support programs and create unique educational opportunities.
    • Need Help?
      • Frequently Asked Questions
      • Contact Us
    • Black, Latinx, and underrepresented minority professionals
      Pathways to Business

      Stories designed to inspire future business leaders.

  • Insights
    Open Insights Mega Menu
    • Business Insights Blog
      • Career Development
      • Communication
      • Decision-Making
      • Earning Your MBA
      • Entrepreneurship & Innovation
      • Finance
      • Leadership
      • Management
      • Negotiation
      • Strategy
    • All Topics
    • Sample Business Lessons and E-Books

      Gain new insights and knowledge from leading faculty and industry experts.

    • Free Guide

      Learn how to formulate a successful business strategy.

  • More Info
    Open More Info Mega Menu
    • Learning Experience
      Master real-world business skills with our immersive platform and engaged community.
    • Certificates, Credentials, & Credits
      Learn how completing courses can boost your resume and move your career forward.
    • Learning Tracks
      Take your career to the next level with this specialization.
    • Financing & Policies
      • Employer Reimbursement
      • Payment & Financial Aid
      • Policies
    • Connect
      • Student Stories
      • Community
    • Need Help?
      • Frequently Asked Questions
      • Request Information
    • Apply Now
Login
My Courses
Access your courses and engage with your peers
My Account
Manage your account, applications, and payments.
HBS Home
  • About HBS
  • Academic Programs
  • Alumni
  • Faculty & Research
  • Baker Library
  • Giving
  • Harvard Business Review
  • Initiatives
  • News
  • Recruit
  • Map / Directions
HBS Online
  • Courses
  • Business Essentials
  • Leadership & Management
  • Entrepreneurship & Innovation
  • Strategy
  • Finance & Accounting
  • Business in Society
  • For Organizations
  • Insights
  • More Info
  • About
  • Media Coverage
  • Founding Donors
  • Leadership Team
  • Careers
  • My Courses
  • My Account
  • Apply Now
  • …→
  • Harvard Business School→
  • HBS Online→
  • Business Insights→

Business Insights

Harvard Business School Online's Business Insights Blog provides the career insights you need to achieve your goals and gain confidence in your business skills.

 
Filter Results Arrow Down Arrow Up

Topics

Topics

  • Accounting
  • Analytics
  • Business Essentials
  • Business in Society
  • Career Development
  • Communication
  • Community
  • ConneXt
  • Decision-Making
  • Earning Your MBA
  • Entrepreneurship & Innovation
  • Finance
  • Leadership
  • Management
  • Marketing
  • Negotiation
  • News & Events
  • Productivity
  • Staff Spotlight
  • Strategy
  • Student Profiles
  • Technology
  • Work-Life Balance

Courses

Courses

  • Alternative Investments
  • Business Analytics
  • Business Strategy
  • CORe
  • Design Thinking and Innovation
  • Disruptive Strategy
  • Economics for Managers
  • Entrepreneurship Essentials
  • Financial Accounting
  • Global Business
  • Leadership Principles
  • Leading with Finance
  • Management Essentials
  • Negotiation Mastery
  • Organizational Leadership
  • Power and Influence for Positive Impact
  • Strategy Execution
  • Sustainable Business Strategy
  • Sustainable Investing
Subscribe to the Blog
RSS feed

Filters

Topics

Topics

  • Accounting
  • Analytics
  • Business Essentials
  • Business in Society
  • Career Development
  • Communication
  • Community
  • ConneXt
  • Decision-Making
  • Earning Your MBA
  • Entrepreneurship & Innovation
  • Finance
  • Leadership
  • Management
  • Marketing
  • Negotiation
  • News & Events
  • Productivity
  • Staff Spotlight
  • Strategy
  • Student Profiles
  • Technology
  • Work-Life Balance

Courses

Courses

  • Alternative Investments
  • Business Analytics
  • Business Strategy
  • CORe
  • Design Thinking and Innovation
  • Disruptive Strategy
  • Economics for Managers
  • Entrepreneurship Essentials
  • Financial Accounting
  • Global Business
  • Leadership Principles
  • Leading with Finance
  • Management Essentials
  • Negotiation Mastery
  • Organizational Leadership
  • Power and Influence for Positive Impact
  • Strategy Execution
  • Sustainable Business Strategy
  • Sustainable Investing
Subscribe to the Blog
RSS feed

5 Key Decision-Making Techniques for Managers

Business manager engaging in decision-making with his team
  • 31 Mar 2020
Matt Gavin Author Staff
tag
  • Communication
  • Decision-Making
  • Management
  • Management Essentials

Decision-making is an essential business skill that drives organizational performance. A survey of more than 750 companies by management consulting firm Bain found a 95 percent correlation between decision-making effectiveness and financial results. The data also showed companies that excel at making and executing strategic decisions generate returns nearly six percent higher than those of their competitors.

At many organizations, it’s up to managers to make the key decisions that influence business strategy. Research by consulting firm McKinsey, however, shows that 61 percent of them believe at least half the time they spend doing so is ineffective.

If you want to avoid falling into this demographic, here are five decision-making techniques you can employ to improve your management skills and help your organization succeed.


Free E-Book: How to Become a More Effective Leader

Access your free e-book today.

DOWNLOAD NOW

Decision-Making Techniques for Managers

1. Take a Process-Oriented Approach

One of your primary responsibilities as a manager is to get things done with and through others, which involves leveraging organizational processes to accomplish goals and produce results. According to Harvard Business School Professor Len Schlesinger, who’s featured in the online course Management Essentials, decision-making is one of the processes you can use to your advantage.

“The majority of people think about making decisions as an event,” Schlesinger says. “It’s very rare to find a single point in time where a ‘decision of significance’ is made and things go forward from there. What we’re really talking about is a process. The role of the manager in overseeing that process is straightforward, yet, at the same time, extraordinarily complex.”

When establishing your decision-making process, first frame the issue at hand to ensure you ask the right questions and everyone agrees on what needs to be decided. From there, build your team and manage group dynamics to analyze the problem and craft a viable solution. By following a structured, multi-step process, you can make informed decisions and achieve the desired outcome.

2. Involve Your Team in the Process

Decision-making doesn’t have to be done in a vacuum. To avoid relying on managerial decisions alone, involve your team in the process to bring multiple viewpoints into the conversation and stimulate creative problem-solving.

Research in the journal Royal Society Open Science shows team decision-making is highly effective because it pools individuals’ collective knowledge and experience, leading to more innovative solutions and helping to surface and overcome hidden biases among groups.

Considering others’ perspectives on how to approach and surmount a specific challenge is an ideal alternative because it helps you become more aware of your implicit biases and manage your team with greater emotional intelligence.

Related: Emotional Intelligence Skills: What They Are & How to Develop Them

3. Foster a Collaborative Mindset

Fostering the right mindset early in the decision-making process is critical to ensuring your team works collaboratively—not contentiously.

When facing a decision, there are two key mindsets to consider:

Decision-Making Mindsets: Advocacy vs. Inquiry

  • Advocacy: A mindset that regards decision-making as a contest. In a group with an advocacy mindset, individuals try to persuade others, defend their positions, and downplay their weaknesses.
  • Inquiry: A mindset that navigates decision-making with collaborative problem-solving. An inquiry mindset centers on individuals testing and evaluating assumptions by presenting balanced arguments, considering alternatives, and being open to constructive criticism.

“On the surface, advocacy and inquiry approaches look deceptively similar,” HBS Professor David Garvin says in Management Essentials. “Both involve individuals engaged in debates, drawing on data, developing alternatives, and deciding on future directions. But, despite these similarities, inquiry and advocacy produce very different results.”

A study by software company Cloverpop found that decisions made and executed by diverse teams deliver 60 percent better results. Strive to instill your team members with an inquiry mindset so they’re empowered to think critically and feel their perspectives are welcomed and valued rather than discouraged and dismissed.

4. Create and Uphold Psychological Safety

For your team members to feel comfortable sharing their diverse perspectives and working collaboratively, it’s crucial to create and maintain a psychologically safe environment. According to research by technology company Google, psychological safety is the most important dynamic found among high-performing teams.

“Psychological safety is essential—first and foremost—for getting the information and perspectives out,” HBS Professor Amy Edmondson says in Management Essentials. “It’s helpful to be able to talk about what we know and think in an effective and thoughtful way before coming to a final conclusion.”

To help your team feel psychologically safe, be respectful and give fair consideration when listening to everyone’s opinions. When voicing your own point of view, be open and transparent, and adapt your communication style to meet the group’s needs. By actively listening and being attuned to your colleagues’ emotions and attitudes, you can forge a stronger bond of trust, make them feel more engaged and foster an environment that allows for more effective decisions.

Related: 5 Tips for Managing Change in the Workplace

5. Reiterate the Goals and Purpose of the Decision

Throughout the decision-making process, it’s vital to avoid common management pitfalls and lose sight of the goals and purpose of the decision on the table.

The goals you’re working toward need to be clearly articulated at the outset of the decision-making process—and constantly reiterated throughout—to ensure they’re ultimately achieved.

“It’s easy, as you get into these conversations, to get so immersed in one substantive part of the equation that you lose track of what the actual purpose is,” Schlesinger says.

Revisiting purpose is especially important when making decisions related to complex initiatives—such as organizational change—to ensure your team feels motivated and aligned and understands how their contributions tie into larger objectives.

Why Are Decision-Making Skills Important?

Effective decision-making can immensely impact organizational performance. By developing your decision-making skills, you can exercise sound judgment and guide your team through the appropriate frameworks and processes—resulting in more data-driven decisions.

You can also anticipate and navigate organizational challenges while analyzing the outcomes of previous efforts, which can have lasting effects on your firm’s success.

Learn More about Management Essentials

Improve Your Decision-Making Skills

Enhancing your decision-making capabilities can be an integral part of your journey to becoming a better manager, reaching your business goals, and advancing your career. In addition to real-world experience, furthering your education by taking a management training course can equip you with a wide range of skills and knowledge that enable both your team and organization to thrive.

Do you want to design, direct, and shape organizational processes to your advantage? Explore Management Essentials, one of our online leadership and management courses, and discover how you can influence the context and environment in which decisions get made.

This post was updated on December 21, 2022. It was originally published on March 31, 2020.

About the Author

Matt Gavin is a member of the marketing team at Harvard Business School Online. Prior to returning to his home state of Massachusetts and joining HBS Online, he lived in North Carolina, where he held roles in news and content marketing. He has a background in video production and previously worked on several documentary films for Boston’s PBS station, WGBH. In his spare time, he enjoys running, exploring New England, and spending time with his family.
 
All FAQs

Top FAQs

How are HBS Online courses delivered?

+–

We offer self-paced programs (with weekly deadlines) on the HBS Online course platform.

Our platform features short, highly produced videos of HBS faculty and guest business experts, interactive graphs and exercises, cold calls to keep you engaged, and opportunities to contribute to a vibrant online community.

Do I need to come to campus to participate in HBS Online programs?

+–

No, all of our programs are 100 percent online, and available to participants regardless of their location.

How do I enroll in a course?

+–

All programs require the completion of a brief application. The applications vary slightly from program to program, but all ask for some personal background information. You can apply for and enroll in programs here. If you are new to HBS Online, you will be required to set up an account before starting an application for the program of your choice.

Our easy online application is free, and no special documentation is required. All applicants must be at least 18 years of age, proficient in English, and committed to learning and engaging with fellow participants throughout the program.

After submitting your application, you should receive an email confirmation from HBS Online. If you do not receive this email, please check your junk email folders and double-check your account to make sure the application was successfully submitted.

Updates to your application and enrollment status will be shown on your Dashboard. We confirm enrollment eligibility within one week of your application.

Does Harvard Business School Online offer an online MBA?

+–

No, Harvard Business School Online offers business certificate programs.

What are my payment options?

+–

We accept payments via credit card, wire transfer, Western Union, and (when available) bank loan. Some candidates may qualify for scholarships or financial aid, which will be credited against the Program Fee once eligibility is determined. Please refer to the Payment & Financial Aid page for further information.

We also allow you to split your payment across 2 separate credit card transactions or send a payment link email to another person on your behalf. If splitting your payment into 2 transactions, a minimum payment of $350 is required for the first transaction.

In all cases, net Program Fees must be paid in full (in US Dollars) to complete registration.

What are the policies for refunds and deferrals?

+–

After enrolling in a program, you may request a withdrawal with refund (minus a $100 nonrefundable enrollment fee) up until 24 hours after the start of your program. Please review the Program Policies page for more details on refunds and deferrals. If your employer has contracted with HBS Online for participation in a program, or if you elect to enroll in the undergraduate credit option of the Credential of Readiness (CORe) program, note that policies for these options may differ.

 

Sign up for News & Announcements

Subject Areas

  • Business Essentials
  • Leadership & Management
  • Entrepreneurship & Innovation
  • Strategy
  • Finance & Accounting
  • Business & Society

Quick Links

  • FAQs
  • Contact Us
  • Request Info
  • Apply Now

About

  • About Us
  • Media Coverage
  • Founding Donors
  • Leadership Team
  • Careers @ HBS Online

Legal

  • Legal
  • Policies
Harvard Business School
Copyright © President & Fellows of Harvard College
  • Site Map
  • Trademark Notice
  • Digital Accessibility