9.2. Learn and Use This Management Decision-Making Structure

Each of the six management decision-making components just discussed (situation, analysis, goals, options, recommendations, and justifications) has three powerful common elements:

  1. Factual basis. You are working with what is actually known, can be counted on, trusted, seen, or measured. In the early stages of change, important situations are so often "underfactualized" that logical decision making seems difficult, if not impossible. When you're giving advice in this format, facts matter. Examples will help. But management will need to see sufficient information to provide measurable or conclusive evidence of progress.

  2. Real-time value. For issues that matter, ideally the gap in time between ...

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