Tools · Decision-Making

The Collaborative Decision Document

A comprehensive structure for high-stakes decisions that senior leadership teams deliberate

Executive teams rarely lose decisions in the meeting. They lose them in the six weeks afterwards, when nobody can reconstruct what was actually agreed or why. The Collaborative Decision Document captures the pre-work, the discussion, the dissent, and the final call in one shared record that survives the calendar. Its pre-work follows MASTER, my six-move framework for consequential decisions.

What you get

• Five sections with who completes each and when: a decision summary anyone reads first, the pre-work, a deliberation meeting, a decision meeting, and the follow-through
• A decision read that sets the path, light or full, and whether you need one meeting or two, plus decision rights, the method, a fallback, and a consultation contract with a default for silence
• A pre-read brief and a private rating sheet, so people form a view before hearing each other and dissent arrives on the record
• Two meetings that end deliberately, the first without a decision, the second with the decision, a trade-off sentence drafted live on screen, and a commitment statement everyone can sign
• After the decision: owners and dates, safeguards and reopen triggers, the communication plan, sign-off, a checkpoint, and a debrief that scores the process out of six
• Fill it in on screen; the fields are clickable in Adobe Acrobat Reader or Preview, or print it, then save and circulate a copy