ESSENTIALS MANAGEMENT Circulate the annals of the decision for precedent and posterity. Now that the decision is made, the real work begins. “Atfer the commitment meeting, you need to to ifgure out how next steps will be delegated and executed,” says Rajaram. “The decision maker must summarize the SPADE behind the decision in a one page document. This brief should be emailed out by the decision maker to the rest of the company or to as broad of an audience as possible. Why? Because the company needs to see what and how decisions are being made.” Square uses an email alias (notes@) to send all kinds of decision and meeting notes to the company. “We started sending SPADE summaries to the company over the last couple of years,” he says. “It’s been really gratifying to see the number of decisions that are increasingly made using this framework and sent out to the company. Employees start to register the high quality decisions that are being made about important topics across the organization. That’s how more people get encouraged to confront diiffcult decisions and share how they made them.” PULLING IT TOGETHER The SPADE decision-making framework can help synchronize and speed up collaboration to make diiffcult choices. While the system outlines a step-by-step process, Rajaram emphasizes a few key takeaways. First, don’t use consensus; agreement does not equate ownership. Second, clarify the ‘why’; it’s essential to understand the purpose and context for making the decision to optimize for it. Third, ensure that the decision maker is both responsible and accountable for the ifnal choice. Don’t be that company where decisions are handed off to be implemented without previous involvement. Fourth, consult maximally. Many more people want to be involved than you think do. Finally, get feedback privately, but document and get support publicly. “I bet you if you survey people at your company today about decision making and their level of happiness, most will say that they don’t understand how decisions are made. This framework allows you to articulate each stage of the process broadly to a company,” he says. “I ifrmly believe that making high quality decisions can fundamentally transform the way we work. I personally can’t wait to live in a world where people and companies make diiffcult decisions systematically and in a high quality way.” 41