Who should decide stuff in our companies?
Last year, while reading the book "Leaders Eat Last: Why Some Teams Pull Together and Others Don’t" I came across the following picture:
The picture shows 2 possible models of working at companies. In the left, we can see companies where authority — and decision-making — is generally placed at the top levels. Managers hold the authority to make the most relevant decisions. But let's keep in mind that sometimes they don't have all the information needed for the best resolutions. Even trying hard and being the best at their roles, it's hard for them to have all the info and details that people living the problems in their everyday work will certainly have.
At the right is the author's proposal:
“Give authority to those closest to the information. Leader’s job is to have vision not authority. “
What he means is: Let leaders have the VISION and guide people giving them a sense of purpose in the work they do. A reason to come to work every day. An inspiration and reason to sweat.
I agree with him entirely. When the decisions are made by people who work close to the situation they will be the most accurate as possible. It will bring success to the company, not only because of that but also because they will feel like they own the business, despite their hierarchical level. Feeling part of the process is one of the best feelings one can have, in my humble opinion. And that's what agility is all about. When working in teams, the decision-making is decentralized and each team can make all the decisions important to their work. Of course, that would be the ideal scenario. In general, we can only see that in very mature agile companies, where the Agile Transformation has either finished or is in a pretty advanced state.
A common scenario is when the agile team is dependent upon several areas of the company. They can't decide when to deliver their most recent software increment, because there is someone up there who doesn't want to see that in production right now. They can't decide which programming language to use, or even which tools to use in their everyday work, because for some reason that was decided ages ago and one can't change. These kinds of dependencies influences directly the team’s motivation. The farther they are from the decision-making process, the more demotivated they will feel.
In conclusion: There may be several layers of bureaucracy between agile teams and upper management. The key is communication and open dialogue. Hearing without judgment. Most of the time, individuals dealing with a problem will know what’s the best way for you to help them. He is close to the issue. If he’s not sure, you can help him to get there.
But please: do not misunderstand the author's idea: It's not that managers won't make any decisions. They will when they are the ones holding the biggest piece of information on the matter being decided. Of course, this will happen with a high frequency. What can not happen is forgetting that our lower-level employees have a great deal of knowledge and information and that it can be vital to keep the business going.
