Organizational Awareness for Decision Making

Organizational awareness is a practice of reading situations to understand informal hierarchies, communication channels, and dynamics between teams within an organization. Organizational awareness which is described as an unwritten ability that can be used to solve a problem.

Every organization has a hierarchy described in its organizational chart. However, organizational charts don't tell the whole story when it comes to team dynamics or the complexities of cross-functional collaboration. Organizational awareness can help you connect with each other on a deeper level thereby opening up opportunities for collaboration, communication and sound decision making.

Benefits of Organizational Awareness in the Company

Here are ways organizational awareness can help you and your product team make the best decisions for your products and customers:

1. Recognizing the Decision Maker

Most product teams are highly productive so decisions are not always made by the same people. To make the right choice, it's important to recognize the decision maker so that you can consider professional input from someone according to their position. However, you still need to understand the informal setting to know who is in the best position to make decisions in a given situation.

2. Understand the Information Needed to Make Decisions

Organizational awareness is a huge asset in making timely and informed decisions. When you understand your organization, you know who you need to talk to to get all the necessary information. You'll also know who you need to share specific information with to ensure the best decisions are made for your product.

If your product workflow has consumer bottlenecks, you'll need additional information to find out which issues to address first. Your team can work with other teams to solve obstacles with the knowledge they have to make decisions easier.

3. Support for the Decision

Maybe not everyone agrees when you make a decision. In an effort to ensure that the decisions you make go well, use organizational awareness to build support for the decisions you make.

Talk to people outside your team who can be influenced by your decisions. You can also ask team members to do the same with people they have strong relationships with.

If problems arise with a decision made, schedule a time to meet, discuss, and listen to their concerns. You need to explain the reasons for making a decision with qualitative and quantitative data to ensure your decision is made for consumer satisfaction.

4. Adjust the Way of Communication with Stakeholders

Try to understand how each person you work with communicates, especially from the way you talk. Not everyone absorbs information in the same way. Therefore, it is important to adjust the way of communication so that the intended information and message will be conveyed.

5. Understand the Interests and Influence of Stakeholders

After knowing the preferences of communication to stakeholders, you need an independent perspective on the intensity of communication with them. You can use the Stakeholder Map to define your approach. Consider the influences and interests of your stakeholders regarding your product and use their classifications to guide your approach to communications.

Monitor: tell people in this group to be able to find information and contact them regularly to make sure they have what they need
Keep informed: understand the needs of the people in this group and ask for their input
Keep satisfied: understand and involve the people in this group and meet their needs, especially when their needs align with your results
Manage closely: involve people who may need to be part of your cross-functional team

6. Measure Support for Your Product

Use stakeholder analysis techniques such as the commitment scale to measure how supportive people in your organization are of your product, and what level of commitment is required to ensure product success.

The commitment scale is used as a way to frame discussions within the team to reflect the team's impression of stakeholder support for your product. If you find some people who are not supportive, determine how to increase their support.

7. Create Support for Your Product

In addition to the stakeholder support you need at the decision-making stage, you also need to build support and gain support for the product itself. To build support for your product, talk directly to the people whose support you need.

While talking with them, share the knowledge that has been gathered. Listen to concerns and consider your product from their perspective. When they see you try to understand things from their point of view.

8. Listening to Understand

In order to build understanding effectively, you need to know where everyone starts. Don't force your views on everyone about certain situations. Help your team to come to a shared understanding of your product goals and values by listening to understand the perspectives of others.

9. Help Team Members Express Purpose

To build a shared understanding, it's best to start with internal team members. You have to formulate a shared understanding as a group. This shared understanding will help you form the coalition necessary to make things happen. Everyone involved understands the result you are striving for and their role in achieving it.

Take time to understand the situation in the organization and continue to work with self-awareness, empathy and self-control. Keep in mind that organizational awareness is a journey