Rule 2 - Everything is decided
About the decision making process at Sustainable Ships
Sustainable Ships is not a democracy.
Sustainable Ships has ‘informed captains’ as per the model of Netflix. These have full decision making authority. Informed captains can also be crewmates or leadership.
In the case of conflict, leadership decides by means of votes until we have a better process in place (preferably the hive mind approach, see below).
There are two types of decisions, reversible and irreversible decisions, referred to as type 1 and type 2 respectively. Type 1 decisions should be made in a decentralized manner by the organization. Type 2 decisions need consensus. As there is no way back once they are taken, everyone should agree on the possible cost of failure. Seeking consensus and dissent is crucial for these types of decisions.
Trust is the highest form of motivation for a human and greatly accelerates decision making. If you trust people or your team completely, you do not need to second guess decisions. Hence openness and collaboration are such vital values for our organization. This is only one of the reasons why values are important.
Speed of decision making is critical in learning faster than your enemy. Hence, speed of decision making trumps efficiency and process in general.
According to Ben Horowitz in “the Hard thing about Hard things”, whenever a (large) organization attempt to do anything, it always comes down to a single person who can delay the entire project. An engineer might be wanting for a go-ahead, or a manager has not clicked on “yes” in SAP. These small, seemingly minor hesitation can cause fatal delays and will kill your organization. These bottlenecks and roadblocks can and should be removed as much as possible. Hence the need to decentralize and delegate decision making as much as possible.
Beyond a certain point, The time that it takes to make a decision does not improve the chances that a decision is correct. A certain percentage of your decisions will be wrong. Not deciding or procrastinating at a decision makes it wrong per default. Plan and prepare for every possibility and you will never act. The reason for the existence of non-negotiables is to increase clarity and speed up the decision making process among others.
In the future, we aim to become a “Hive Mind”. We should strive to combine AI and human networks, amplifies the intelligence of networked business teams, enabling significantly more accurate forecasts, predictions, decisions, and insights. An example of such a tool is Swarm from Unanimous AI, see below. When used properly, it fosters an environment of cooperation, experimentation and effective decision-making. The ‘informed captain’ can in the future become the shared hive decision making process for all type 1 decisions generally, potentially even type 2.
Questions to aid in decision-making
Will it make a vessel emit less CO2? (Yes/No)
Is it better than doing nothing? (Yes/No)
Will it reduce the cost of experimentations? (Yes/No)
Do you have to do it only once? (Yes/No)
If the answer is “Yes” in all cases, then it is probably a good idea. If the answer is “No”, ask help. These questions only apply to Type 1 decisions, where the consequences are reversable. If there is no way back from a decision, it might not be only yours to make.