Decision-Making Best Practice 11 – Evaluate the Front Page Headline

Transparency motivates. Transparency shapes. Transparency drives. Decisions made in full view of those who would provide critical judgment – shareholders, regulators, employees, and the public – provides a powerfully strong guiding force that demands decision-makers fully vet the business and ethical implications of each option and soundly support their ultimate selection. Not every decision can or should be made in the public view. However, every decision-maker can challenge their team and themselves with the question, How would this decision read as a New York Times front page headline?[wcm_restrict plans=”49308, 25542, 25653″]

Evaluating decision options against various stakeholders’ reactions strengthens the decision-making debate and drives a more thorough evaluation of the options. However, this practice should not be allowed to foster ‘decisions by popularity.’ All decisions naturally result in gains and losses as no option is ever a truly perfect solution. And decision-makers are charged with the difficult responsibility to choose between options that will necessarily create outcomes that make some winners and others losers. This, however, is expected and reasoned, thoughtful decisions will be respected. Decision-making transparency drives thoughtfulness during the decision-making process.

Implementing the Evaluate the Front Page Headline Practice

While the business and ethical impacts of all decisions should be considered, formal implementation of the ‘Evaluate the Front Page Headline’ practice should be considered for those significant decisions that are, in fact, worthy of local, state, national, or international media attention. This includes decisions having the potential for meaningfully impactful business, financial, safety (personnel, industrial, and environmental), and ethical outcomes.

Similarly, it would be unnecessarily time consuming to evaluate all options for each significant decision. Decision-makers will find it advantageous to exercise the front page headline evaluation for those final two or three options being seriously considered for implementation. The evaluation itself occurs during the debate of these options prior to final selection and implementation.

The front page headline evaluation process is both quantitative and qualitative as significant decisions are impactful because of their calculable and perception-based results. Several questions to consider when evaluating a decision option in this way include but are not limited to:

Quantitative Questions

1. What are the potential financial gains and costs of the decision option and the probability of achieving each?
2. What is the probability of an industrial event or accident? What could be the costs of recovery from those occurrences?
3. What is the likelihood that employees or the public will be placed at risk? What potential injuries or impacts could be sustained?
4. What is the probability that environmentally damaging impacts will be realized? What could the quantitative impacts be? How long will the impacts exist? What could the cleanup cost?

Qualitative Questions

1. Is the decision option consistent with the organization’s values?
2. To what degree does the decision option align with the organization’s goals?
3. Is the decision option consistent with the organization’s desired public image?
4. Will you (the decision-maker) be proud to be known by peers, loved ones, and the public for this decision?
5. What qualitative benefits and costs (organizational culture, workforce and public perception, regulatory relationships and scrutiny) could be realized as a result of implementing this option?

Finally, the decision-maker should consider whether those close to the decision and involved in the decision-making process could be biased when conducting the front page headline evaluation. If bias could exist, strong consideration should be given to engaging individuals not so involved in assessing the decision options. Individuals to consider include:

• Trusted personal and business advisors
• Company leaders from other business units
• Peers from non-competing companies having similar risk factors

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Part of ensuring the desired headline appears in the press is openly communicating the decision and the behind-the-scenes reasoning for its selection. Again, not all decisions should be aired in the public domain but those who will implement and others who could potentially be impacted by the decision should receive thorough, open communications about the decision and its basis to the maximum extent possible. In the absence of this communication, individuals are likely to fill the void with their own impressions and conclusions; many of which may be counter to the actual reasoning behind the decision. Decision transparency not only fosters engagement but will help ensure the decision is correctly perceived.[/wcm_restrict][wcm_nonmember plans=”49308, 25542, 25653″]

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