After participating in a half-dozen end-of-year off-sites and planning sessions, it struck me how often strategy dialogues get diverted the same way.
Someone raises a topic. People start tossing in opinions so everyone feels heard. The conversation turns into a friendly tug-of-war of preferences. Then, two hours later, everyone is tired, nobody is clear and the meeting ends with: “Let’s circle back.”
The hidden problem is almost always the same: A decision was being discussed, but it was never labeled as a decision.
When a decision isn’t named, it doesn’t get framed. When it isn’t framed, it can’t be evaluated. And when it can’t be evaluated, the loudest voice, the highest title or the strongest emotion tends to win. In other words: Your strategy session turns into a group project, and we all know how those end.
So, here’s a practical move that instantly upgrades decision quality: Stop the conversation and name it.
“Hold on. This is a decision. The decision is: Do we do A, B or C? Or do we go or no-go?”
That sentence shifts the group from “talking about stuff” to making a choice.
It also triggers the next question most leaders skip: Who should be involved in the decision? In my experience, it’s usually fewer people than leadership assumes.
Step 1: Decide How the Decision Will Be Made
Years ago, Yale professor Victor Vroom’s research clarified what effective leaders do intuitively: They choose the right decision-making approach for the situation. Not every decision should be made by committee. Not every decision should be made alone. The skill is matching the approach to the decision. Vroom’s five decision approaches are a clean framework:
- A1 — Leader decides alone with available information.
- A2 — Leader gathers information from others (without debate), then decides alone.
- C1 — Leader consults individuals one at a time for input, then decides.
- C2 — Leader consults with multiple people as a group, then decides.
- G2 — Leader convenes the group and truly gives the decision to the group.
This framework separates information exchange from decision authority. You can gather information widely and still retain the right to decide. Or you can share authority when buy-in and ownership matter more than speed. Going from A1 to G2 takes more time, but it can also build deeper consensus. The trick is knowing what you need, either more speed and clarity or ownership and alignment.
Here’s the caution: If your team doesn’t share objectives, G2 is fantasy football without a draft board. Everybody has a strong opinion, nobody’s accountable for the outcome and Monday morning is full of regret.
Step 2: Use Strategic Questions to Objectify the Options
Once you have chosen how the decision will be made, you still need a way to evaluate the options without getting trapped in intuition, politics or “what we did last year.” That is where a simple set of strategic questions turns fog into focus:
- What are the musts? Non-negotiables? What cannot be sacrificed?
- What are the wants? What do we ideally want to gain?
- What are the risks? What could go wrong that we must consider?
- What are the gains? What benefits could realistically be realized?
The “musts” often eliminate options immediately and save enormous time. They create a clear line: These are non-negotiables. Next, rank your wants and see which options meet the most important ones. If the decision relates to a negotiation, weighting your wants is basic best practice, otherwise the meeting becomes “my want versus your want,” which is just a polite version of arm wrestling.
Then list the risks behind each option. At this point, many decisions become clearer, sometimes obvious. You’re looking for the most rational decision: maximum benefit within acceptable risk parameters. Finally, list the gains under each option to see whether one option offers a much greater return with a reasonable likelihood of success.
Step 3: For Bigger Calls, Score Risk Versus Reward
When making decisions that are larger or riskier, put the available options into a spreadsheet and score both the reward and risk on a scale.
A practical reward scale:
- +1 minor enhancement only you notice
- +2 nice improvement others benefit from
- +3 companywide benefit people talk about regularly
- +4 customers flock to you; strong market impact
- +5 game changer for company/industry
A practical risk scale:
- -1 minor annoyance
- -2 problem you can solve internally
- -3 requires outside help and becomes visible internally
- -4 huge embarrassment
- -5 so bad it could seriously harm the company
Two guardrails:
- If the reward is under +2, ask why you’re spending oxygen on it.
- If the risk approaches -4 or -5, it’s likely a no-go unless the upside is extraordinary and mitigation is real.
This isn’t fake math to impress the chief financial officer; it’s clarity. It surfaces assumptions and forces the team to actually say what they believe.
Step 4: Use an Outsider to Reduce Blind Spots
Even the best leaders can’t see what they’re standing inside of. That’s why an objective outsider — an adviser, board member, coach or wise peer — can accelerate success. They aren’t burdened with the fear, politics or personal history surrounding the decision. They can help you name the decision, choose the method and use the tools above to make the process more rational and confident.
The Takeaway
Next time an off-site conversation starts to drift, do one thing: Label the decision. Then, choose who should be involved and which strategic approach (A1 to G2) fits. Next, run the options through musts, wants, risks and gains,
scoring risk/reward when the stakes justify it.
That’s how you turn a meeting full of opinions into a decision that produces outcomes without needing a second off-site meeting to recover from the first.
Mark Faust (513-621-8000, mark@em1990.com) works with owners, CEOs and sales managers who want to grow their businesses. You can schedule a free profit improvement session with Mark by visiting calendly.com/markfaust. Read more ideas from him here.
