How Decisions Get Made Part 3
You’re sitting in a leadership meeting with a proposal on the table in front of you. On paper, it’s strong. But something feels off. One senior stakeholder is unusually quiet. Another is supportive, but carefully so. No one is challenging the proposal directly, but the room feels unsettled.
The group starts moving towards agreement. Do you go with it? Or do you interrupt the moment?
This is the part of decision-making that neat models often miss. Real decisions happening in social settings. They are shaped by relationships, reputation, status, and risk.
The science
Karl Weick’s work on sensemaking is useful here because it reminds us that people do not always understand first and act later. Often, they act, interpret, and then make sense of what they have done. In that sense, decisions are not always the end point of thinking. Sometimes they are part of the process of figuring things out.
That is important, because it means decision-making in organisations is rarely fully rational, fully linear, or fully transparent. It is often iterative, negotiated, and incomplete.
Amy Edmondson’s research on psychological safety adds another layer. When people believe they can speak up without embarrassment or punishment, they’re more likely to raise concerns, ask questions, and contribute information that improves the quality of the decision. When they don’t feel safe, silence becomes more likely.
Silence is not neutral. This is why agreement in the room does not always mean alignment in practice. People may comply publicly while remaining unconvinced privately. They may stay quiet because they fear conflict, do not trust the process, or assume their contribution won’t matter.
Philip Tetlock’s work on forecasting and judgement is also relevant here. Better judgement is not built on certainty, but on the ability to hold multiple possibilities, update beliefs, and resist premature closure. That is an uncomfortable discipline, but it is a more realistic one.
Key findings
A few patterns show up consistently in real decision environments.
- Decisions are shaped by power, not just logic.
Whose voice carries weight often matters as much as what is said. - Irrational decisions often have rational roots.
Protecting relationships, reputation, or stability can drive choices that do not look optimal on paper. - Timing is part of the decision.
Delaying, accelerating, or sequencing a decision can be as important as the choice itself. - Agreement does not equal alignment.
People may say yes in the room and still resist in practice if underlying concerns have not been surfaced.
What this means in practice
If decisions are messy, the goal is not to eliminate the mess. The goal is to navigate it more consciously.
That starts with recognising what’s really happening in the moment. A decision that looks like hesitation might be someone managing stakeholder reactions, creating space for alignment, or avoiding premature closure. A decision that looks like agreement might be compliance without commitment, silence driven by risk, or unresolved tension beneath the surface.
This is where decision-making becomes less about choosing an option and more about reading the environment.
Ask:
- What is being said?
- What’s not being said?
- Who’s influencing the direction?
- What is at stake for different people in the room?
- What would happen if this decision was made differently?
Not just in terms of outcomes, but in terms of trust, relationships, and future behaviour.
Because sometimes the best decision in isolation is not the best decision in context.
A quote to reflect on
The most important problems in organisations are not technical, they are adaptive. — Ronald Heifetz
A question to reflect on
Think about a decision that did not go the way you expected. What made it make sense to the people involved at the time?
Further readings