In the world of business, clarity is the cornerstone of sound decision-making. Whether you're a board of directors, business owner, or a general manager, your choices greatly impact your organisation's success. To get good clarity though, you need to test assumptions. In this blog I’m going to give you three simple things to think about when it comes to getting clarity around your business direction and decisions.
Assumptions are the building blocks of decision-making. They're the ideas and beliefs that underpin our choices. But, relying on assumptions without validation can be a risky endeavour. To attain clarity, it's essential to test these assumptions rigorously.
Analyse data and construct your assumptions based on facts, not hunches. Establish feedback from the team to continually test and refine your assumptions. Regular check-ins and performance metrics help ensure that your assumptions are still valid.
Independent views bring an outsider's viewpoint to your business. They're not influenced by internal politics or groupthink, making them invaluable in challenging existing assumptions and their objectivity should prevent them from accepting assumptions at face value.
In Board Agenda, which is a UK governance publication, there was an interview with John Allen, the Chair of Tesco, about the value of non-executive directors and independent advice. WATCH MY VIDEO ABOUT THIS. His view was that it is management's role to set the direction and explore the options for the business, but the role of the non-executive director is to test those options and assumptions, challenge thinking, and look at things through a different lens.
So today's question is, who's offering a different perspective in your business? And who's challenging your assumptions?
