Perry Maddox explains three simple decision-making models for leaders and answers the worrying question of “how are decisions made?”
A few days later, I realized I got something wrong.
Really wrong.
In the middle of an urgent crisis, I convened a senior team to make a key decision. We had to move fast to respond, and in the course of a quick meeting we talked it through and came to a decision on what needed to be done.
One small problem.
As I later learned, a few team members didn’t realize that we’d made a decision. Nor did they all agree with the course of action taken. I was shocked to learn that, despite discussing it as a group, we left the room with different understandings of the outcome.
Who’s fault was that? Mine, of course.
The Worst Kind of Question: How are Decisions Made?
Normally I love a good question at work.
Good questions spur the thinking, discussion and debate that drive learning. When our people are growing, so are our organizations, so I’ve learned to welcome tough questions over the years.
But I’ve also learned that certain questions are big, red flags. Like this one:
How are decisions made?
Few questions signal organizational disfunction more than this one. When people don’t understand how decisions are made, all kinds of problems exist.
When this question arises regularly from staff, it signals a lack of transparency, poor communication from leadership, and a weak line of sight across teams. The problems don’t stop there. When people are uncertain about decision-making, a troubling blend of low trust, belonging, and morale isn’t far behind.
Not to mention the decisions themselves. When people don’t understand how decisions are made, organizations tend to misdiagnose problems. From there, bad solutions follow.
Three Ways to Make Decisions when Leading a Group.
As a young director, a mentor noticed my tendency toward consensus-based, group decision making. A nice instinct, this tendency often slowed decision-making and risked overburdening my team.
Instead of a one-size-fits-all approach, he taught me to choose between three different decision-making methods:
- Directive. “I don’t want your opinion, and I’ll make the decision.” A rare method for good leaders, this style is correct for an issue that is highly confidential, an urgent emergency, or a highly sensitive issue where an open discussion could do harm. Bad leaders are notable for their overuse of this style, but even good leaders deploy it on occasion.
- Consensus. “I want your opinions, and we’ll all make the decision together.” The other end of the spectrum is full consensus. It’s a great way to go, but full consensus takes time. Most people I know are short on time at work, so use this approach for issues that truly need the entire team’s insight and buy-in, like strategy, major change or issues for which the process is as important as the outcome.
- Consultative. “I want your opinions, and I’ll make the decision.” A hybrid model. In this approach, we invite the voice, insights and wisdom of our teams into the room, but leaders make the final decision. This model works well when team expertise can inform the best outcome, but where full consensus isn’t achievable. For example, a staff-wide discussion on a salary structure, or even a leadership-wide discussion on a restructure. If your team is big enough, you’ll never find a full consensus on an issue like these, but your team can still engage and offer its expertise. By not requiring full consensus, you also relieve your team from much of the pressure in making a sensitive, or unpopular, decision.
Leaders Decide How Decisions are Made.
The best leaders don’t make all the decisions, thankfully. Our world has suffered enough at the hands of autocrats.
Instead of making every decision, the best leaders decide how to make the decision.
Choosing how the decision will be made is step one of two.
Step two is where I failed my team in the story above. It’s not enough to simply decide how the decision will be made. Leaders must also clearly communicate the decision-making process to their teams, in advance.
When your teams understand the process, they know where responsibility sits. Most importantly, they know how to share their opinions and how best to shape the outcome.
Which is what they were really asking for when they asked how decisions are made.
2 Comments
Perry I agree with so much of what you say. I learned in my Management consulting, that a reverse order works well.
1- Consultative
2-Consensus
3-Directive.
1 gets 2 … 2 gets 3. 3 gets it done. Management & Leadership means if you are on the decision team, when all leave the room, they will, mind you…not try, but will follow the decision, or it will soon become clear if not accomplished, whether it is they Cannot or Will not do the task. Decision or ability.
Either way, non accomplishment too often requires replacement. This is in the employment agreement, not an assumption or presumption.
I love how you flipped the sequence on its head. I’d never considered it that way, and know it’s hard not to see it as 1–>2 –> 3 progress. Almost as though being Directive is a ‘right’ for leaders to earn through consultation/consensus. And yes, I fully agree on the brass tacks element of this. Failure to deliver is in effect a violation of the employment agreement from the drop.