Hi there, this is Jon & Mark from Salt & Light.
It’s the big meeting with the senior leadership team next Thursday.
Your proposed decision is the only agenda point.
You pulled a cross-functional team together, and it worked. Agreeing on the core issue, you gathered intelligence, questioned the data, and gained perspective. You have 4 viable and compelling routes forward.
This adds even more weight, as you and the Exec. both have a lot at stake.
This decision will become the go-to market strategy for your new launch asset. Not only will it define success or failure for your market, but it will also guide pricing and access to other markets across Europe.
Feeling torn between several options, you begin to spiral.
Your team offers different experiences and perspectives on the best way forward. But some are louder in the room than others. The quiet ones have value but aren’t sharing their views.
You need discernment, not pressure, before you take your choice to the Exec.
Why you shouldn't decide alone
The last thing you want is to alienate anyone.
And you don’t want those with the loudest voices to win. At the same time, you also have to avoid indecision by trying to keep everyone happy. With the weight of responsibility on you to decide, it can be easy to step away from your team.
But the answer is within your team.
And like most leadership situations, some structure, rigour and process offer a way to overcome the complexity of the choice — and bring your team with you.
Giving your team the safety, trust, and space for honest debate is vital.
The solution comes from not just an open debate but having a tool that brings just enough structure and rigour.
Weigh the decision together.
A weighted scorecard turns a subjective debate into an objective one.
Start by agreeing on three to five criteria that matter most for this decision. Speed to market. Cost. Risk exposure. Strategic fit. Whatever reflects your priorities. Then, and this is the step most teams skip, agree on how much each criterion matters. Assign a weighting to each one. All weightings must add up to 100%.
Now score each of your four options against every criterion. Use data where you have it. Use informed judgment where you don't. Then multiply each score by its weighting and add them up.
The number that comes out isn't the answer. It's the beginning of the real conversation.
Because when your CFO weighs cost at 40% and your CMO weights strategic fit at 40%, you haven't just found a disagreement. You've found the trade-off that was always there because nobody had named it yet.
What would it reveal if your leadership team weighed this decision independently, before comparing results?
When you weigh a decision, the top score never pleases everyone. What it exposes are differences you want to debate.
These trade-off discussions get to the crux of a decision. They pull out perspectives from your team. You will want to look at the options more deeply.
Simple questions like:
What gains might they bring?
What might they cost us?
Is this trade-off worth it?
There is another angle of consideration.
Questions that are probability-based give rise to beliefs and confidence that can further inform your choice. Ask, " How confident are you?” “How risky is this decision?” “How sure are you?”
Get the team to write these down, then verbalise them. It will bring more debate, but also give rise to the insights you need to make the best decision.
Here's your challenge this week
You have the team to help build the options. Now it’s time to bring them into the decision-making process.
Step 1: Build the scorecard together.
Don't arrive with the criteria already set. Let the team define what matters most for this decision; speed, cost, risk, strategic fit, or something else entirely.
Then ask each person to assign their own weightings independently, before sharing. The gaps between their answers reveal the trade-offs you will have to make.
That’s where the real debate lives.
Step 2: Question the probabilities.
Once the scorecard is complete, challenge it with probability-based questions.
Ask your team to write down their answers, then debate them. What surfaces might surprise you.
Step 3: Spotlight the decision.
You've heard the debate. You've seen the scores. You've questioned the likelihood.
Now it's on you.
Not the team, not the process. You.
Which option are you willing to back, knowing what you're giving up?
Time to make the call and prep for that Leadership Meeting.
Hit reply and tell us how it went. Did the scorecard surface something you hadn't seen? Did the bet change the room? We read every response.
If you'd like to explore how better decision-making could work across your team - whether that's our decision-making course or a conversation about what you're facing right now - reply, and we'll take it from there.
Jon & Mark