As business leaders we constantly face difficult decisions. How do we ensure we choose the right solutions that are in line with our personal morality and ethics, as well as the expectations of those around us who rely on us?

1. HOW TO MAKE DIFFICULT
DECISIONS?

2. © 2021 Bernard Marr, Bernard Marr & Co. All rights reserved
As business leaders we constantly face difficult decisions. How do we ensure we
choose the right solutions that are in line with our personal morality and ethics, as
well as the expectations of those around us who rely on us?
HOW TO MAKE DIFFICULT DECISIONS?

3. © 2021 Bernard Marr, Bernard Marr & Co. All rights reserved
There are two types of difficult decisions that business leaders will inevitably come up
against. The first, and by far the easiest to deal with, are ones where, given the right data, we
have everything we need to make the right decision. Some examples might be hiring the
best person for a job or diversifying our offerings into new products and services.
Objectively, there is a right answer, and with an analytical mindset, we will find the right
solution.
The other type is a little bit more difficult to deal with. These are decisions that require more
complex and subjective decision-making. Sometimes these will be decisions that will affect
people’s lives – the people within our organization or our customers, and they might mean
making some of them unhappy. With these decisions, there may not be an objectively
"right" solution – and getting to the “best” (or, perhaps, “least bad”) solution might require
examining issues of morality, ethics, and personal values.

4. © 2021 Bernard Marr, Bernard Marr & Co. All rights reserved
This is the premise of a book I recently read, written by Eric Pliner, the CEO of the
international consulting group YSC Consulting. Pliner was good enough to agree to join me
on a webinar to discuss the practical approach he has put together for tackling these tricky,
subjective, and often very human decisions. As many organizations are currently emerging
from a particularly difficult period during which they have come up against many of these
decisions, it’s clearly a particularly pressing issue right now.
During our conversation, Pliner tells me, “One of the themes I notice consistently is that the
challenges that leaders are most troubled by are the ones that don’t have the ability to be
solved easily through the use of ostensibly objective data.

5. © 2021 Bernard Marr, Bernard Marr & Co. All rights reserved
“They are difficult because they are human, they have real implications for people’s lives, and no
matter how much data we gather and how much analysis we do, we aren’t able to make the
decisions without having some effect on people.”
Difficult decisions brought about by the ongoing Covid-10 pandemic have, for many
organizations, required making extremely tough and challenging choices around furloughing or
laying off staff, keeping premises and workplaces open, implementing home working policies, and
instigating safety measures to ensure that staff are healthy and put in the least amount of danger
as possible.
What makes these decisions tricky is that there is not a clearly correct course of action that can be
determined by examining data. Two principles that both seem "right" – such as the need to keep
a business running, so people's jobs are viable and the need to keep people out of harm's way –
might be in direct opposition to each other.

6. © 2021 Bernard Marr, Bernard Marr & Co. All rights reserved
Similarly, requiring staff to be vaccinated before returning to workplaces puts issues of bodily
autonomy – what employees do with their own bodies – and public health in opposition.
Pliner suggests that these “difficult decisions” arise when any two sides of a triangle –
personal morality, ethical context, and the responsibility of our roles – come into conflict.
Helpfully, this way of modeling decisions also gives us a straightforward method of finding a
solution, he proposes; simply look to the third side of the triangle.
“When any two sides of the triangle come into conflict, look to the third side – in this case,
your role, your responsibilities,” he says.

7. © 2021 Bernard Marr, Bernard Marr & Co. All rights reserved
“As a leader, what’s my responsibility? Make sure my business can be productive, make sure
my people are healthy and able to deliver on their responsibilities, and that they and their
families and communities are taken care of … ultimately it's clear that in order to deliver
that, I either have to give people a choice about whether or not to come into the space, or if
they are going to come into the space, to create a set of measures that align to that ethical
expectation of public health.”
Pliner acknowledges that there are times where, following this framework, different leaders
may come to different decisions, given the same set of circumstances. But nevertheless, it
does offer a structured approach to tackling decisions that might seem hopeless or where
there is no good solution – or even a least bad one.

8. © 2021 Bernard Marr, Bernard Marr & Co. All rights reserved
Companies face these issues all of the time and can find themselves in very sticky situations if
they don’t have a methodology for making such decisions. And the bigger a business is, the
more potential there is for it to run itself aground. Many leaders over the years have made
the mistake of simply ignoring such problems, but this is likely to simply cause further
difficulties because, as Pilner examines in his book, there are many situations where inaction
or delay has the effect of becoming a choice in itself. To illustrate this, he points to the
example of Disney and Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” bill. When the state introduced legislation
recently banning the discussion of homosexual relationships in schools, the corporation’s
refusal to condemn it – despite CEO Bob Chapek’s assurances that he personally disagreed
with it – has led to it coming under fire from all parties – it’s customers, workers, and the
state lawmakers.

9. © 2021 Bernard Marr, Bernard Marr & Co. All rights reserved
On the other hand, Pliner points to Ralph Lauren as a company that has done a good job of
navigating difficult decisions. In making decisions on how to look after its workforce of
more than 80,000 during the pandemic, its leadership underwent a complex process of
understanding and evaluating the implications of all of the choices which had to be made.
"The sign that they potentially made a pretty good set of choices is that roughly 80 percent
of their employees returned after the furlough period – that’s a pretty amazing sign about
the values that the company espouses, but also the way they live their values, that they
understood their ethical context and they were able to reconcile that with their role
responsibilities.”
I finished our chat by asking Pilner what would be the one piece of advice he would give to
leaders on the subject of making difficult decisions.

10. © 2021 Bernard Marr, Bernard Marr & Co. All rights reserved
The answer, he tells me, is to evaluate why we make the decisions that we do in relation
to the three sides of the triangle we talk about. This involves thinking about where our
morality comes from, understanding the ethical context in which we make decisions,
and learning what exactly the expectations of our roles are in the eyes of all of our
stakeholders.
He tells me, "I encourage leaders to think about this stuff when you're not in a crisis,
because when the crisis inevitably comes … it's come for all of us within the last few
years … you're better prepared to be able to deal with whatever difficult decision is in
front of you."

11. © 2021 Bernard Marr, Bernard Marr & Co. All rights reserved
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12. © 2021 Bernard Marr , Bernard Marr & Co. All rights reserved
Bernard Marr is an internationally best-selling author, popular keynote speaker,
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companies. He helps organisations improve their business performance, use data
more intelligently, and understand the implications of new technologies such as
artificial intelligence, big data, blockchains, and the Internet of Things.
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