The Five Critical Questions to Improve your Decision-Making in Business and Life
When faced with a major opportunity or challenge in our professional or personal life, such as embarking on a new business venture, relocating to a new country or buying a home, there are 5 types of questions we should ask ourselves before moving forward.
Tackling each question greatly increases our chances of spotting all the points to be explored and of uncovering details that would otherwise have gone unnoticed. On closer inspection, new questions may emerge with very different implications, resulting in an entirely different outcome.
Most of the time, it's the questions we fail to ask ourselves that get us in trouble in business as in life.
The 5 types of questions that improve informed decision-making
Here are the 5 types of questions recommended by the Harvard Business Review (HBR) to improve informed decision-making when faced with an opportunity or challenge.
Investigative: What's known? Start by clarifying the opportunity, your goal – not just what you want to achieve, but also what you’ll need to learn to get there. Questions such as ‘Why?’ and ‘How?’ will help you dig deeper to uncover non-obvious information.
Speculative: What if? What else? These questions allow you to broaden your perspective, reframe the opportunity or challenge at hand and explore the most creative solutions. What are the possible alternatives (Plan B)?
Productive: Now what? Assessing the resources available enables to define a plan of action based on talents, capabilities, time and other resources. How can we get it done? How will we measure progress? These questions help identify key metrics and milestones – along with potential bottlenecks. This will expose risks, including strains on the organization’s capacity.
Subjective: What's left unsaid? This question deals with personal reservations, frustrations, tensions, and hidden agendas that may be getting in the way of decision-making.
Interpretive: So what? This follow-up step can push you to refocus on the core question yet again, to go beneath the surface and draw out the implications of an observation or idea. ‘What's really at stake in this problem?’
The example of a medium-sized pharmaceutical company seeking to enter a new market
A medium-sized pharmaceutical company is seeking to acquire a new product line. The patents on its flagship cardiovascular and metabolic products are about to expire, and sales are set to fall sharply with the arrival of generics on the market. Against this backdrop, the company's strategic objective is to gain a foothold in the fast-growing hemato/oncology sector, driven mainly by the advent of immunological treatments (cell therapy or bispecific antibodies). The acquisition of one or more product licenses would ensure the company's development and growth over the next 25 years.
The investigative question: What’s known? What do we need to learn to get there? In recent years, the field of hemato/oncology has evolved into a highly competitive and complex market. Today, opportunities focus on specific diseases at precise stages, such as metastatic pancreatic cancer relapsing after a first-line of chemotherapy, with a survival of less than 6 months. Moreover, R&D efforts no longer focus on the acquisition of a single product, but on the acquisition of a platform capable of generating this product and, in all likelihood, others in the future. Identifying a product that can transform the treatment of a specific disease at a particular stage of its progression is extremely complex. And strategic planning is made extremely difficult by the challenge of understanding and forecasting market trends over the next 5 or 10 years. In this context, the company needs to set up a multi-disciplinary team whose first task is to identify highly qualified external experts to assist them [What can the world cup teach business leaders in terms of performance].
The speculative question: What if? What else? The technical team must develop a Plan B and a Plan C; each of these plans requires detailed analysis and includes mitigation measures to resolve the problems identified. The 'what ifs' are numerous: the drug may be less effective than expected, or only effective in a sub-group, it may be more toxic, its large-scale production may be much more complicated than anticipated, the manufacturing process may generate impurities compromising the product’s safety or quality, and so on. The 'what ifs' can also be positive: the product may be more active, its target population broader, requiring production on a scale not originally planned.
The productive question: Now what? What resources? What metrics? What are the bottlenecks? The technical team has detailed the costs and resources needed to complete Plan A, Plan B or Plan C. Any bottlenecks (expected or unlikely) must be discussed, and a solution proposed. The team should also propose metrics that management can track to measure progress.
The subjective question: What’s left unsaid? Science evolves daily. Previously unknown side effects may be discovered, the hypothesized mechanism of action – often based on experimental models – may not be exactly match the one predicted, and diseases evolve over time. Unearthing hitherto undiscovered factors is a remarkably delicate exercise, but one that is essential to decision-making. The Covid experience, for example, has shown just how vulnerable we can be in the face of major, unexpected events.
The interpretive question: So, what? What's really at stake with this opportunity? With the plan in place, budgets set, resources allocated, strengths and weaknesses clearly outlined, opportunities and threats well documented, do we move forward? The Company may decide that an acquisition may not be the best option at this point and instead either hire or outsource a preclinical team to generate new drug development candidates.
The example of emigrating to the United States
In the spring of 2000, I'd just completed my assignments at the headquarters of a Swiss multinational pharmaceutical company – when my husband was unexpectedly offered a position in the US. Back then, and still today, the United States was the world's leading R&D destination in the pharmaceutical sector. What's more, I'd always wanted to get an MBA; the opportunity to graduate from a prestigious American university would be a tremendous boost to my career. Moving to the US would represent a cultural challenge at first, but knowing the country would make the adjustment less stressful. So, it took us 48 hours to decide to buy a one-way ticket to New York, and 3 months later we were on our way.
The investigative question: Was it an opportunity? Yes, it was a no-brainer. Clearly, this was an exceptional opportunity. Why? The United States are home to all the high-tech research and development centers of tomorrow's medicine. Earning a degree from a prestigious American university would be a major asset for my career. Finally, our knowledge of the United States would facilitate our integration. The risks? To take the G-Math admission test, I'd have to overcome deep-seated mental barriers about my math skills, once judged weak by my elementary school teacher. At first, I was on a visa as an accompanying spouse with no work permit in the United States.
The speculative question: What if? What else? We had no plan B. 'Failure was not an option'. Looking back, we took a lot of risks. Out of the 18 families expatriated by Christian's company, only 3 stayed beyond two years. These included us and two friends. For the 15 other families, the culture shock, including cultural differences in the workplace, and the challenge of integrating in general were all factors making for a difficult adjustment. Our unwavering mantra ‘failure is not an option’ has helped us to absorb all these shocks. Should we have asked ourselves ‘what, if'? Certainly, today I'd have a contingency plan, just in case.
The productive question: Now what? What resources? How can we get it done? What are the bottlenecks? We faced a few administrative and organizational challenges, such as obtaining a social security number (necessary to open a bank account), finding a math teacher to prepare for the G-Math, finding housing close to New York University (NYU) and Christian's office, and obtaining a work permit for me. Fortunately, we obtained a green card in less than a year. Other resources we set up to improve our chances of success were : keeping our apartment in Paris and going back 4 times a year to prevent initial homesickness, and Christian also provided me with a budget for my personal needs (since I was no longer earning money). This was a major source of motivation.
The subjective question: What’s left unsaid? Personal reservations? One of the things that was left out of the equation was the horrific terrorist attack of 9/11. Having lived through the wave of terrorist attacks in Paris in 1995, we were once again confronted with terrorism. On that day, like many Americans, our vision of the world was deeply shaken. For many months, we wondered to what extent this major disaster would shatter our dreams. What would be the lasting impact on New York City and our quality of life? Could New York become New York again after the loss of its iconic twin towers? And would America remain the land of endless opportunity?
The interpretive question: after all, integrating all the information, would we still do it? Yes. It was one of our greatest decisions, so far.
Final thoughts
Embarking on a new adventure is fraught with unknowns and uncertainties and can prove to be a real ordeal. Any new project inevitably involves risks: miscalculations, incorrect assumptions, unknowns, even outright underestimation. A detailed analysis of the benefit/risk ratio, and of the opportunities and threats, can considerably increase the probability of success.
The five-question checklist outlined in this post can provide a useful framework for prompting new thinking on a variety of topics, with the goal of creating a plan that allows for more informed decision-making in the face of uncertainty.
Remember that success of any endeavor, whether professional or personal, requires an unwavering commitment to the project and a sense of personal accountability, including to the people closely involved, whether colleagues or family members.
