A plant manager I know had to cut a shift. Standard playbook: rank by seniority, notify HR, send the email. Instead, he sat down with a one-page chart and asked a different question first: who does this decision actually touch? Not headcount — people. A line worker supporting his mother. A new hire who'd just moved towns for the job. A customer whose order now ships late. The decision didn't change — the shift still got cut. But how he made it changed everything: who he told first, what he offered, how he explained it. Eighteen months later, two of those workers came back. They told him it was because of how they were let go.
That's Principled Decision-Making — PDM. It's the first base of formation, and it rests on one premise: every decision you make either honors or diminishes the dignity of the people it touches. Most leaders already believe that. Almost none have a process for it. Belief without process is the quiet noise — a sincere mission with no system to deliver it.
PDM is the process. The Dignity Chart walks a real decision through its real stakeholders — employees, families, customers, community — and asks what each one is owed before you decide, not after. It isn't slower; it's earlier. The hard conversations happen on paper first, where they're cheap.
And here's the traction half: your L10 already has an Issues List. PDM turns it from a priority sort into a dignity filter. Same meeting, same ninety minutes — one added question before any issue is marked solved: who does this touch, and does our solution honor them? That question, asked weekly, is the system. Without it, PDM stays a value on the wall — the loud noise of a scorecard that's green while nobody can say why it matters.
This week's prompt: "Tell us about one decision — yours or a client's — where walking it through the Dignity Chart changed the outcome, or changed how it landed. What did the chart surface that instinct missed?"
Who does your next decision touch — and does your solution honor them?
Try This
Pick one live decision on your plate this week — a hire, a vendor change, a tough conversation. Before deciding, list every person it touches and what each is owed. Ten minutes, one page. Then decide. Notice what the list changed.
This Week's Tool
Name: PDM Dignity Chart worksheet
Link: Dignity Chart Worksheet
Your Move
Download the Dignity Chart and run one real decision through it this week. Reply and tell me what it surfaced — I read every reply.
Go Deeper
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The Mission & Traction Implementation Series: one step per week for 48 weeks. New subscribers start from Week 1.
