The Importance of Decision-Making
In today’s VUCA (volatile, uncertain, complex, ambiguous) world, or in times of The Great Uncertainty as it’s now being called, three features of decision-making are becoming more critical. It’s not just about making decisions, it’s about making decisions in a way that are a good fit for today’s increasingly challenging conditions.
Some challenges and wicked problems are impossible for a single person to work with- instead a team’s collective intelligence is needed, but is difficult to unleash. And in a fast-changing world, it’s becoming ever-more important for decision-making to be more agile and responsive. But the strategies and skills of effective decision-making seem to be sadly neglected!
As all of us, teams and organizations included, face increasing complexity and unpredictability, teams must be equipped to navigate these challenges so they can respond and adapt as needed. Sometimes that requires agility and fast decision-making, at others it requires a considered collaborative process that unleashes the collective intelligence so that a decision taken together is better than any individual could come up with on their own.
The ability to make informed decisions quickly can mean the difference between seizing opportunities and being left behind. It’s not merely about making choices; it’s about fostering an environment where clarity reigns, and people know what they can decide quickly on their own, what they need to check with others and what they need to decide together with others.
As we dive deeper into the nuances of decision-making, it’s essential to understand that the foundation of effective teamwork lies in clarity about both decision-making authority and decision-making processes. This blog will explore practical strategies that can be employed for effective decision-making, both individually and collectively. This is a crucial distinction that is often missed in many teams.
Strategies for Effective Team Decision-Making
The first step in effective decision-making is to identify whether a decision can be made individually or if it requires a collaborative approach to decide together with others.
Individual Decision-Making
If a decision can be made individually, for example, setting the date of an event next month, the next step is to clarify who holds the authority to make that decision. Is it the Team Leader, a colleague, or yourself, and does it need approval from others?
If the Team Leader decides, then do you find a range of options for dates for the Team Leader to choose one?
Or if it’s yourself, do you gather input and information from all relevant roles, and then decide the date yourself and then inform others?
It’s equally important to determine if the decision requires approval from other parties. If so, after choosing one or a few dates, then check in with the Team Lead, the rest of the team, or any relevant stakeholders to secure that approval before proceeding.
How confident do you feel that the decisions you make yourself are as good as they could be? For decisions that you make yourself- check out the process below in the section titled ‘How Do You Make Decisions?’ to see if you can improve how you do it.
Also read : How to Improve Team Decision Making
Collaborative Decision-Making
Other more complex decisions often need to be made collectively and not just by a single person. For example deciding organisational strategy. For these it’s essential to identify the process that will guide this collaborative effort. Will you engage in a discussion followed by agreement, or simply vote, or use a more sophisticated consent-based decision-making process?
Whatever collective process you choose for deciding the strategy, make sure everyone understands how this process will work, including how airtime will be shared, what happens if agreement is not easily reached, and how differences of opinion and objections will be raised, tested, and resolved. Differences of opinion about organisational strategy are to be expected, and are even needed, from different roles/people/departments in an organisation. And a good collective process will bring them to the surface so they can be constructively worked with and integrated.
Psychological safety is essential for team members to feel secure enough to challenge ideas, disagree constructively, and speak truth to power. This environment fosters innovation and leads to better decision outcomes. How psychologically safe do you feel in such situations?
Appoint a Facilitator to guide the collective decision-making process, ensuring that everyone’s voice is heard and value and that the process is kept to in a neutral way- a bit like a referee.
How Do You Make Decisions?
Once you’ve clarified that a decision can be made individually rather than collectively, it’s time to clarify the decision itself and confirm who has the authority to make it.
If you are fortunate enough to be in a Self-Managing Team which relies on role clarity to distribute decision-making, then this is a good way to own the authority of your role to quickly and effectively make a decision:
Check your role definition to confirm that you have the authority to make the decision. For example, one of your roles may include an accountability for ‘Deciding and publishing dates of training events’. A good Self-Managing Team will have a set of role definitions (sometimes called Governance Records) where everyone can see the roles and responsibilities within your team.
Next, identify any constraints that may affect the decision-making process. These could include the need to align with team priorities or gather input from others. There may be a Policy in your team’s Governance Records that says ‘Decisions about any training dates must first get a ‘No Objection’ from the Trainer and Training Logistics role before a venue is booked’.
Find the “sweet spot” between speed and inclusivity. How much input is required from others? How urgent is the decision/how much time do you have to make it? You probably aren’t going to do a 6-month consultation across the whole organisation. And you probably need more than giving it 2-mins thought and then choosing a date that seems right to you. A key skill of decision-making is to find the sweet spot that balances the urgency of the decision/time available to make it, with the need for input/information/support/buy-in.
If input is needed from others, then consciously consider what the best way is of getting it. You may want to use the Advice Process, consulting impacted stakeholders.
Once you have all relevant information, make the decision, own it and clearly communicate it. Transparency in decision-making fosters trust and accountability within the team.
Or, if you are not fortunate enough to be in a Self-Managing Team which relies on role clarity to distribute decision-making, then good luck with clarifying the decision-making authority! The typical routes tend to go something like:
You could go and ask your Team Leader for clarity about who decides the dates for these events, but the chances are that you’ll get some ambiguous messages about delegation which normally tends to mean something like ‘I don’t want to be bothered with this so I’ll leave it with you, as long as you don’t do something that I don’t like, but if you decide something I don’t like then I’ll trump what you decide with what I want to do’.
Or, you could go and ‘ask the team’, in which case you are more than likely to spend longer discussing and trying to figure out whose decision it is, than it would have taken to just make the decision in the first place.
So we muddle on as it’s too much of a headache to try and figure this out without a clear and robust process to do it.
Why Decision-Making is Important in the Workplace
Mainly just for getting stuff done…
But specifically and importantly in our time of Great Uncertainty, when decisions are made collectively, it’s an opportunity to harness the collective intelligence of the team, leading to solutions that are often superior to what any individual could devise alone. However, this requires the right conditions— a clear decision-making process, psychological safety, an environment that encourages risk-taking, and skilled facilitation to ensure collective intelligence can emerge.
In a rapidly changing and unpredictable environment, frontline teams must be empowered to make decisions swiftly. This decentralization of decision-making not only enhances agility but also prevents managers from becoming bottlenecks. By distributing authority across the team, organizations can respond more effectively to challenges and opportunities, fostering a culture of resilience, responsiveness and adaptability.
Conclusion
In conclusion, the importance of decision-making within teams cannot be overstated. And unfortunately, the neglect of attention to and training in decision-making also cannot be overstated. People are just expected to ‘get on with it’ without adequate support and training to understand the complexity and nuances of decision-making in today’s VUCA world.
By establishing clarity around authority and processes, individuals and teams can navigate this complexity more effectively with a requisite approach. As we move forward in this series, remember that effective decision-making is a skill that can be cultivated. By employing the strategies outlined in this blog, your team can unlock its full potential, making decisions that are not only fast when needed, but also informed by collective intelligence and inclusive when needed.
Let’s embrace the challenge of evolving our decision-making practices, fostering a culture where clarity, collaboration, and empowerment thrive. Together, we can build resilient teams that are equipped to face the complexities of the modern workplace head-on!
This blog serves as a continuation of our commitment to improving decision-making within organizations. Stay tuned for our next installment, where we will delve deeper into the practical tools that can support effective decision-making in various team structures.
For more insights and resources, visit our website and take our free Team Needs Check to see if you need help with enhancing your team’s decision-making capabilities. Together, let’s evolve and adapt to the challenges of our dynamic world.
