The PDM method
Understand the decision-maker before improving the decision.
01Why decision-makers fail
Why do intelligent and experienced leaders make unintelligent decisions — too often?
Not for lack of knowledge. The answer sits in the decision-maker — and in the mental process that creates the choice.
- Resultscome from
- Decisionswhich are created by
- The decision-makerwho is shaped by
- Invisible inner forceswhich PDM makes
- Visible & manageableand then provides
- A process to navigate the decisionwhich turns better decisions into
- Better executionand, over time,
- Better organizations
02The invisible forces
What shapes a decision before it is made.
What we cannot see, we cannot manage. These are the forces PDM makes visible.
See the sequence- 01Experience
- What we have lived — and what it taught us to expect.
- 02Values
- What we hold to be right, important and non-negotiable.
- 03Assumptions
- What we take to be true without checking.
- 04Emotion
- What we feel about the situation, the people and the stakes.
- 05Mindset
- The frame that decides which options we can see.
- 06Risk tolerance
- How much uncertainty we are willing to carry.
- 07Priorities
- What matters most — and what we are willing to give up.
- 08Perception
- How we read the situation, which is never the situation itself.
03Prime state
The science of better leadership decisions
A better decision begins before the decision itself.
Better decisions do not begin with the decision. They begin with the state of the person making it.
Professional Decision-Making asks leaders to manage themselves intelligently before attempting to manage the decision. Prime state precedes prime decision-making.
- The decision-makerwhose
- Stateshapes their
- Perceptionwhich shapes their
- Judgementwhich creates
- The decision
Managing the self
- 01Emotional regulation
- Also the fourth leg of the framework.
- 02Attention
- What the mind is on while the decision forms.
- 03Assumptions
- What is taken as true without checking.
- 04Perception
- How the situation is read.
- 05Risk response
- How uncertainty is carried.
- 06Mental clarity
- Whether the picture is clear enough to judge.
Decision-making + Decision Intelligence
- PDM · Professional Decision-Making
- The discipline.
- Decision Intelligence
- The capability to understand and manage the mental processes that shape decisions. PDM develops it by making those processes visible and manageable.
Prime state does not replace the four legs.
It lets the decision-maker engage them well.
The framework stays as it is. A leader whose state is unmanaged cannot reliably hold goals, values, information and emotion in balance.
That is why PDM is experiential: the exercises let leaders observe their own state, assumptions, risk response, interpretation, logic and root-cause thinking as they happen.
The experiential methodTo manage decisions intelligently, first manage yourself intelligently.
04The four-leg framework
Four legs. One decision. If one is missing, the chair falls apart.
The decision-maker
Four legs around one decision-maker. Select a leg to see the question it asks.
- 01
Goal clarity
What do I actually want to achieve?
Clarity of goals and achievement. A decision is only as clear as the goal behind it — PDM separates the stated goal from the real one and makes the real one explicit.
- 02
Value base
What principles, motivations and boundaries shape the decision?
Values define what is acceptable before any option is weighed. Made visible, they become boundaries a leader can use deliberately.
- 03
Information analysis
Can we distinguish signal from noise, challenge assumptions and create meaningful alternatives?
Analytical and creative thinking. Analysis narrows; creativity widens. A professional decision-maker can do both — and knows which one the moment requires.
- 04
Emotional regulation
Can we recognize and manage emotional forces affecting judgement?
Emotion is always present in consequential decisions. The discipline is not to remove it, but to recognize it and keep it from deciding for us.
The multiplication principle
A × B × C × D = decision quality.
The four legs multiply; they do not add. A severe weakness in one critical leg can undermine the entire decision.
0.8 × 0.9 × 0.7 × 0 = 0
Decision quality
0.8 × 0.9 × 0.7 × 0.8
= 0.40
A PDM conceptual model: the legs multiply, they do not add. A zero anywhere makes the whole zero.
Four legs, one stable decision. All four matter.
06The experiential method
See your own mind at work.
PDM uses experiential exercises, including game-theory-based scenarios, to place leaders inside real decision crossroads.
The objective is not simply to discuss decision-making. It is to expose the mental process as it happens.
PDM does not simply tell leaders how decisions should be made.
It gives them situations in which they can observe how their own mind actually makes them.
- Decision crossroad
- Personal response
- Assumptions revealed
- Risk & opportunity
- Interpretation
- Logic
- Root cause
- Choice
What the exercise brings into view
- 01Assumptions
- What did I take to be true without checking?
- 02Risk vs opportunity
- What did I see first: the loss, or the gain?
- 03Logic
- What reasoning connected the facts to my choice?
- 04Interpretation
- How did I read the situation — and who might read it differently?
- 05Root cause
- Did I address the cause, or the symptom?
- 06Mental framing
- Which frame decided the options I could see?
And before any of these: the state the leader brings to the crossroad. Prime state
- 01See the process.
- 02Examine the process.
- 03Improve the process.
What becomes visible can be improved.
07Decision quality × execution
The two legs of decision effectiveness.
Quality of decision × quality of execution = decision effectiveness. Each is judged on a 0–1 scale, so a manager can see which leg is weaker — and strengthen it.
0.8 × 0.5 = 0.4
Decision effectiveness
0.8 × 0.5
= 0.40
The shaded area is the effectiveness. A conceptual 0–1 scale for diagnosis, not a measurement.
The decision is sound. Execution is the weaker leg — strengthen it first.
08Risk tendency
Every leader has a conditioned way of seeing risk.
Leaders tend to settle into one central pattern: how much they see the benefit, and how much they see the loss. PDM makes the pattern visible — so it can be examined rather than obeyed.
Benefit-aware, loss-aware.
Led by the upside, while still recognising the downside.
09Mini–Max motivation
What you invest, and what you expect in return.
Minimum smart investment, maximum result.
Mini–Max
Not laziness: the maximum result with the minimum unnecessary waste.
Efficiency, leverage and smart use of time, money, energy and attention. The orientation of elite operators, where effectiveness and economy of effort decide the outcome.
Resources: time, money, energy, effort, attention.
Cultural conditioning
“I was raised to work hard, invest all my resources, and expect survival in return.”
These tendencies are often inherited, not chosen. PDM asks whether the inherited mindset still serves the leader.
10From decisions to culture
Organizations measure outcomes. PDM examines the process that produced them.
Results are visible.The thinking that created them usually isn’t.
- Organizations ask
- What result did we get?
- PDM also asks
- What thinking process created that result?
What organizations manage
Results · targets · rewards
are produced by
- Organizational culture
- Mental patterns
- Assumptions
- Values
- Information analysis
- Emotion
- The decision process
What PDM examines
The principles behind the method.
David Solomon has distilled PDM into twenty-two decision-creating principles — short, demanding ideas leaders can carry into the room.
Read the PDM principlesApplied to people: the PDM Executive Decision Profile.
Create better decisions.Create better organizations.
For executive teams, boards, universities, conferences and leadership events.