What is the most important role of your team? Why do you come together? I ask those questions of every team I work with. What is the organization counting on you to do? Inevitably, within the first three answers, someone will say, “make decisions.”
And that’s when the conversation gets interesting…
I ask it back to the rest of the team, “Does this team make decisions?”
Several folks will usually nod reflexively, “Sure, of course we make decisions.”
One or two will pause, scrunch up their faces, and interrogate the idea in their heads.
“Ok, let’s try a test. If the majority of you supported one course of action but the team leader favored another, would the majority rule?”
Smiles. Polite chuckles. “No, probably not.”
“Ok, so what’s often going on is that your team leader owns the decision, but she makes it feel like it’s a shared decision. Is that fair?”
Heads nod. (Some team leaders, having known this all along, smile wryly. Others are as genuinely surprised by this truth as their team members.)
Continuing…
“Are there situations where it’s not the team leader, but a member of the team who owns a decision that you’re discussing?”
“Sure, sometimes I need to make a call on who I’m going to promote. I value my colleague’s opinions and want to hear their take, but ultimately, I’m going to make the decision.”
“Are there any decisions that truly are team decisions, where it’s more democratic and everyone gets a vote, or you actually need to reach consensus to proceed?”
“Maybe where we go for dinner after the session.” Everyone chuckles.
One person belly laughs, “Ha! As if! Phil always overrules our choices. Even dinner isn’t democratic!”
And that’s how the conversation about teams as decision-making bodies usually go.
When Teams Try to Decide
Of course, there are teams where the conversation goes differently. Those are the teams who genuinely think they are supposed to be making decisions collectively; the teams without clear roles or decision-making authority. They fight the idea of individual accountability for decision-making. Those teams are usually deep in dysfunction.
That’s because, in the vast majority of cases, teams should not make decisions. Group decision-making is ineffective and inefficient. That’s not to say that teams don’t have a role in the decision-making process—they have a critical role. They need to provide input, debate, inform, test, validate, challenge, enlighten, anticipate… and then leave the decision owner to make the call.
When team members think that the decision is shared, a few things happen:
- Decision-making becomes a painful, protracted process where people go on at length trying to convince others who don’t want to be convinced
- Responsibility for the implementation of a decision is diffused with no one feeling a sense of ownership to ensure the plan succeeds
- The risk of blame and finger-pointing increases as people construct their own narratives about who convinced whom to do what. “I just went along because Rex said so.”
The Alternative
Strive for a situation where 95% of decisions have a single owner. Then play your role based on whether you’re the owner or a supporting player.
Decision-Maker Responsibilities
- Define the desired outcome
- Provide context and background
- Request input from specific stakeholders
- Frame the conversation
- Share an initial set of options with the advantages and disadvantages of each
- End the conversation when you have sufficient input
- Communicate your decision
- Provide opportunities to re-evaluate the decision later
Contributor Responsibilities
- Read and consider material that is provided*
- Add additional information, perspectives, or evidence for consideration
- Suggest people or perspectives that have been omitted and should be included
- Offer alternate scenarios or options
- Spot assumptions or gaps in the logic used to support one or more options
- Confirm your understanding of the decision and your role in supporting it
*It’s probably worth noting that your very first responsibility as someone who is contributing to a decision-making process is, at the very least, to read and consider material that is provided to you. If you show up to a meeting without having read the materials and start to opine on what you think should or shouldn’t happen, you are failing in your obligation to your team.
Try It and See
You’ll see how much more effective it is when the decision-maker is clear. They take the driver’s seat and your job is to do everything possible to help them make a great decision. As soon as you’ve shared the relevant information, added missing perspectives, spotted assumptions or errors in the logic, and shared your views on what will be required for successful implementation, you’re done. Zip it. As long as you’ve contributed to a strong process, it’s not your job to be invested in one path or another. Only to be invested in the success of whichever path is taken.
Where is your team at on this realization? I’d love to hear from you.
Further Reading
Improve decision-making by separating phases
9 Easy Ways to Improve Decision Making on Your Team
Quick steps to improve your decision making
thanks, liane, for another affirmative, provocative post. this, too, can elevate the level of the game teams play. deciding how to decide, along with role clarity, can unleash aligned commitment, coordinated accountability and high-impact performance.
John, thanks such much. Once you’ve seen the benefits of that type of role clarity and coordinated accountability, it’s easy to understand. So few have had the opportunity. You and I can keep spreading the word!
This article is really talking about the difference betwn a team and a collective! In a team setting it is wise (and the norm) to have a team leader. I like to have co-leaders. Benn working with both organizational teams and sports teams for a few decades now and leadership- as well as leadership development- is key!
Thanks, Liane. I absolutely agree with the model you’ve described: the team contributes, but 95 percent of the decisions have a single owner.
In my experience, that only works when the decision-maker has earned the team members’ trust. You’ve written a lot about building trust. I’d love to hear your thoughts about how to accelerate the trust-building process on short-term, ad hoc teams and even on “permanent” teams where people constantly come and go.
Hi Larry, thanks for adding to the thinking. In some ways, the most important trust is that the decision owner has the trust of the person to whom they are accountable. If that trust is there, the decisions will stick. That said, the quality of the process depends on people contributing openly. To build trust: 1) be clear on the purpose of the task and the roles of the people involved (it’s amazing how many interpersonal trust issues stem from misalignment); 2) make it clear to people how their perspective is unique and show them that you value it (we like people who like us); 3) find spots to ask genuinely for help; and if you’re trying to build trust quickly, 4) break bread with people. Studies show that there is a benefit of eating together. I’m not sure if it would work virtually, but worth a try. Those are a few… thanks Larry!
Thank you, Liane. That’s really helpful!
This article might be useful https://www.lianedavey.com/10-tips-to-prevent-misalignment-from-destroying-trust/
Being the owner of a decision is scary. What if you make the wrong one? It could be a career-ending move. The natural risk-reduction tendency is for leaders to distribute decision-making responsibility across the team to also spread accountability, the thinking being everyone not only gets to shoulder the blame but also share in the accolades. That’s the beauty of a democratic process, right? Yes, but look how messy and ineffective it gets. Your article describes an alternate power structure system — the benevolent dictator. A benevolent dictatorship is made possible (and more importantly acceptable) by defining two clearly separated roles: 1.Contibuting to decision-making, and 2.Owning decision-making. It’s the job of leaders to not only know the difference, but to go out of their way to have everyone be engaged (including themselves) in the contribution sphere. This not only can this result in better richer options arising worthy of consideration, it also makes teams members more inclined to support not only the decisions made, but also be supportive of the person owning the decision-making (the benevolent dictator). This purpose-driven vulnerability by leaders enables the psychological safety needed by them to not be attracted to diluting decision-making ownership responsibility to the team. Which by their example of psychological safety creation engenders the climate for all team members to exercise their own individual capacities for their own personal psychological safety creation. Everyone is taking charge of leading themselves within the contextual framework defined by these two spheres of decision-making: Contribution and Ownership. Thanks for helping make this essential “how-to” for leaders/what must be done by leaders distinction more obvious.
Hi Jonn, thanks for chiming in. While I wouldn’t have labelled it benevolent dictatorship, I see how that title fits. It’s true, organizations aren’t democracies and separating out the decision owner from the contributors is one important part of making organizational systems work.
There’s so much power in actually recognizing the dynamic in a room and making it explicit. Down with subtext! Down with assumptions!
This reminded me of a recent post from The Oatmeal about brainstorming: https://theoatmeal.com/comics/creativity_brainstorming
Amy, that post in The Oatmeal is AWESOME! Particularly the final pictures of the artist! I love it!
Liane love this post. I’d swear you are listening to the conversations I’ve had with my team last week. We were just discussing accountability and who is accountable vs consulted as we balance some areas of frustration and some conflict on who the decision maker is or decision making process.
Karen, I promise I’m not snooping (or collecting information from phones in meeting rooms!). I have just been around enough teams to know that this is a common problem. I hope the post adds a little weight to your side of the scales!!