Decisions Over Decimals

CHAPTER 8Delivering the Decision

I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free.

— Michelangelo

Going through the three pillars of the Quantitative Intuition (QI)™ framework from precision questioning through IWIKs™ and the backward approach to contextual analysis and finally to a synthesis you have triangulated the intuitive and quantitative signals to reveal a decision. It may have been barely hidden or buried deep, but this new “truth” is now known to you. And right there is the final hurdle. The insight and the recommendation, along with its justification, is known to you or perhaps a few colleagues who have taken this data‐driven journey with you. What do you do now to bring along the stakeholders and gain their support?

Reaching a decision can be an accomplishment but taking action on it is the necessary step for the decision to have value. Decisions are often personal but typically involve others at a minimum for awareness and usually engaging stakeholders for cooperation and consent across the organization. This final step of communicating a decision to trigger stakeholder action can be thought of as delivering the decision and if done poorly risks wasting all the preceding effort.

The Story Arc in Decision‐Making

The practice of storytelling is as old as time itself and transcends not only countries and continents but entire historical eras. Humans are one of the few species who tell stories to communicate. It's acknowledged that bees tell stories ...