Deciding about people.

The heaviest decisions are not about numbers

An investment can be calculated, a reorganisation can be drawn, a succession can be planned. A decision that concerns a person cannot be calculated, cannot be drawn and plans badly, and yet it is the one an executive most often makes alone, as late as possible, and with the least help. Replacing an operations director who no longer delivers, promoting a team leader to the executive committee, taking an area away from a deputy who built it, settling the conflict between two managers that paralyses a department: each of these decisions commits the company for years, is visible to everyone, and cannot be undone without damage.

The firm treats human resources in this single dimension: the decision that falls to the executive and that no one can take in their place. It does not recruit, does not run interviews in volume, does not draft staff regulations and does not replace the human resources function where one exists. It instructs one specific decision, builds the options, says what it thinks, and stays until the decision is made, announced and held.

Why these decisions are made too late

Three mechanisms, found in almost every company of a few dozen to a few hundred people.

The first is the confusion between the person and the position. The executive has known the manager for ten years, has seen him hold the house together through the hard years, and evaluates a man where a position should be evaluated. The question "is he good" has no answer; the question "is this position, as it is today, being held" has one, and it can be asked without judging the person.

The second is the invisible cost of waiting. A manager who no longer holds his position does not only cost his salary. He costs the decisions he does not take, the staff who leave because they are no longer led, the clients who sense the drift, and the executive's time spent compensating without saying so. This cost appears in no account, and it is almost always higher than the cost of a separation, including in Switzerland where employment law makes separation relatively simple, with a statutory notice period of one to three months depending on seniority and whatever longer period the contract provides.

The third is the absence of options. The executive sees two outcomes, keep or separate, and since the second seems brutal, he chooses the first by default, month after month. Yet there is almost always a third and a fourth way: redefining the scope, adding a skill alongside, changing the reporting line, setting a three-month objective with an agreed exit point. These options only appear once the decision is framed, and that is precisely what the executive's entourage, which has its own interests in the matter, does not help him do.

The five situations the firm handles

Whether to replace a key manager. The most frequent situation and the most poorly instructed. The firm starts by establishing what the position requires today, what it will require in two years, and what the person actually brings to it, from facts rather than impressions: decisions taken and not taken, results of the area, what staff and clients say when one listens without asking. It then builds the options, of which replacement is only one, and puts a figure on what each costs and what it makes irreversible.

Composing or recomposing the executive committee. Who should sit on it, with what scope, and under what decision rules. An executive committee that reflects the company's history rather than its current needs takes slow and political decisions. The firm proposes a target composition, the moves to reach it, and how to announce them without those who leave losing face.

Delegating an area. How far to delegate, to whom, and how to keep control without taking the work back. Delegation most often fails through excess caution: the executive delegates the task but keeps the decision, and the deputy becomes an expensive executor. The firm sets what is delegated, what is not, the signals that would bring the decision back up, and the rhythm of checkpoints.

Settling a difficult individual situation. An employee whose behaviour blocks a team, a manager in open disagreement with management, a fragile person nobody dares to talk about. The decision is made by holding together the law, the health of the team and the executive's reputation, and it is announced with prepared words. The firm works with the company's legal counsel where the situation requires it; it does not replace it.

Resolving a conflict between two managers. When two managers clash, the executive is tempted to arbitrate between people. Most lasting conflicts between managers come from a poorly drawn scope or an absent decision rule; they are settled by deciding the scope, not the people. The firm establishes where the conflict really comes from before proposing how to close it.

How the firm instructs a decision of this kind

The method is that of all the firm's engagements, in four steps, but it takes a particular form here because the material is human.

Framing writes the decision in one sentence, with what it commits and what one refuses to decide at the same time. "Should X be replaced" is a bad question; "who should hold the operations directorship for the next three years, and on what conditions" is a good one, because it opens the options instead of closing them.

Establishing the facts separates what is known, what is assumed and what others have an interest in making one believe. This is where the firm's discipline, which comes from intelligence work, counts most: in a decision that concerns a person, everyone brings a narrative, and the most convincing narrative is rarely the most accurate. The firm conducts interviews, reads the figures of the area, and writes down in plain terms what remains uncertain.

Building the options proposes two or three, real ones, comparable on the same criteria: what each costs, what it makes irreversible, how it will be perceived by the team, by clients and by the person concerned, and what signal would indicate it is time to change.

The decision and its announcement are prepared together. A good decision badly announced produces the effects of a bad decision. The firm prepares with the executive what will be said, to whom, in what order and in what words, including to the person concerned, and sets what will be expected at three months.

The mistakes the firm sees most often

Waiting for an objective signal that will never come. Human situations do not produce a decisive figure; they produce an accumulation of small facts the executive eventually stops seeing.

Deciding alone out of loyalty. The confidentiality of these decisions is legitimate; isolation is not. An outside counterpart, bound to secrecy, with no stake in the outcome, changes the quality of the reasoning.

Confusing separation with punishment. Parting with a manager who no longer holds his position is not punishing him; it is recognising that the position has changed. The executive who understands it that way announces better, and the person concerned leaves better.

Promoting the best technician. The best engineer does not make the best head of engineers, and the company loses both: an excellent technician and an unhappy manager. The question to ask is what the position requires, not what the person deserves.

Taking back control after delegating. The executive who takes back a delegated decision at the first deviation teaches the whole organisation that nothing should be decided without him.

What Swiss law says, and what it does not

Swiss employment law leaves the executive real freedom: an open-ended contract can be terminated with a statutory notice period of one month in the first year of service, two months from the second to the ninth year, three months thereafter, subject to a contract or collective agreement providing more, and without any obligation to justify the termination, outside abuse and protected periods. This freedom is a legal convenience, not a decision convenience. The hard question is almost never "may I" but "should I, and how". The firm handles the second; the company's legal counsel handles the first where the situation requires it.

Deliverable and duration

An informed decision, its conditions, how to announce and hold it, and what will be expected of it at three months. One to four weeks depending on the situation, at a fixed fee set in the written proposal. The first thirty-minute conversation is not charged; it serves to say whether the firm can be useful and in which format.

What you can do right now

Write the decision in one sentence, without a proper name. If the sentence contains a name, it is about a person; rephrase it so that it is about a position. Then list what you know, what you assume, and what you have been told; the third column is almost always the longest. Finally, look for a third option between keeping and separating. If you cannot find one, that is the situation a first conversation with the firm serves to open.