Decided Decision-Making Premises
Decided decision-making premises – this term summarises everything in an organisation which represents stable and explicit foundations for recurring individual decisions. In the established terminology of system-theoretical organisational studies, Luhmann sums these up as decision-making paths, staffing, as well as all defined processes and activities of a (formal) organisation.
Referring to the guiding distinctions presented here, the same applies: all established, documented and disclosed regulations for all nine guiding distinctions can be viewed as decided decision-making premises. As structures of the organisation, they form the possibility of developing stable expectations (“Tomorrow Muller will still be the boss, the customer x will get discount and Huber must not interrupt me when I am working.”)
For change projects, these structures must, for the most part, be seen as a very ‘hard‘ reality. This means that organisations rarely change if the formal structures are not also changed. Otherwise, changes in the attention focus of participating employees or in informal communication patterns will not really hold. Conversely, it matters that decisions which impact changes in the formal structure of an organisation are often not considered in their effect on other forms of decision-making premises. Also, the willingness of personnel to take into account new decidable decision-making premises often assumes other forms of communication in decider-teams and the psychological self-direction. The dynamics of psyche, team and organisation always act together.