Olaseni Durojaiye

iven the high level of competitiveness among businesses globally, and in the rivalry to attract both portfolio investors and foreign direct investments (FDI) among countries, one of the challenges that business and political leaders are now faced with is how to contend with a fast paced, decisionmaking landscape to remain ahead of competition.

The challenge that this posed, has transported VUCA into the business and political space. VUCA, an acronym for Volatile, Uncertain, Complex and Ambiguous, was once an exclusive acronym used by the American Military to describe extreme conditions in Afghanistan and Iraq. Today, VUCA has become the buzz word among senior leaders and aptly expresses the fact that the rate of change is outpacing the ability of economies, businesses, industries and people to adapt.

Remarkably so, political and business leaders are trying to make sense of the fast paced decision making landscape they are faced with. Dependence on intuition, belief and values for decision making are giving way to newer mental models based on agility, critical thinking, adaptable learning, people orientation and responsiveness to change.

Yet in this increasingly volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous environment, political and business leaders continue to make wrong decisions plunging their economies into recession and their corporations into bankruptcy.

The Future of Executive Decision Making

The importance of making right judgment call and avoiding the dilemma of plunging businesses and nations into peril assumed the front burner of discourse at the CGMA Speak Series, which held in Lagos. The series which is a thought leadership forum was organized by the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants, the world’s largest professional body of management accountants, in conjunction with Philips Consulting, to brainstorm on the problems and proffer solutions to the decision-making process undertaken regularly by senior leaders.

The theme of the event was “Joining the Dots: The Future of Executive Decision Making.”

The CGMA Speaks Series focused on a research jointly commissioned by CIMA and the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA), the world’s largest association representing the accounting profession, to investigate the effectiveness of decision-making practices in large organisations by C-level administrators in 16 countries.

The research report, which was released in 2016, identified five major problems which companies are struggling to deal with namely; overcoming bureaucracy and achieving agile decision making, building greater levels of trust and improving collaboration, balancing short, medium, and long-term view and define the right metrics, translating huge volumes of data into strategic insight, and building the decision-making skills of senior leaders. Experts Share Insights The CGMA Speaks Series had in attendance high-profile corporate executives from both indigenous and multinational companies, who shared their insights on current business issues and corporate strategies about the context of today’s business environment in Nigeria and across the world.

Delivering a keynote address, President, CIMA, Andrew Miskin, said the mode of communication in business