Bring the Decision to the Team!
THINKING AND WORKING DIFFERENTLY
Taking the first steps to distributed decision-making
Image: Antoni Shkraba, Pexels
6-minute read
In our last Coaching Newsletter issue, we started discussing Decision-Making. If you completed the suggested 14-day challenge, you might have gained awareness that despite your making a particular decision, oftentimes there were people within your organization who would have been more qualified to do so. Today´s Newsletter will explore how to start coaching your team for distributed decision-making.
Have you ever had the impression that work keeps accumulating at your desk and that nobody is taking anything away from your plate, but actually just adding to it? Do you ever feel that your team members would rather escalate a decision than make it by themselves and be held accountable for it? Let´s just say that this feeling is more common than you think, and yet very few of us are willing to let go and transfer the responsibility of decision-making to someone else. We tend to think that we can solve matters faster, cheaper, more efficiently, or with better outcomes than anyone else (chances are you became a manager because you are great at problem-solving).
So, we actually believe that we are responsible for each and every single matter that shows up. In fact, by sticking to this mindset and behavior, we are actually becoming not only a bottleneck for getting the work done in a timely and flexible way (thus jeopardizing the future of our organization) but also risk becoming a stressed team member, elevating the chances of achieving poor results or burning out. Moreover, we discourage other team members from taking the matter into their own hands, turning decision-making escalation into a preferred way of work.
There is no magic wand to get the plates to disappear from our desks, but we can choose to take the first steps away from this hamster wheel by creating an adequate environment and having the right coaching conversations with our teams.
Setting the stage for distributed decision-making
One of your most important tasks as a manager is to nurture your team´s growth. However, this can only happen when people feel valued for who they are and not for what they represent. As a part of assessing how much your current environment is contributing to this, we encourage you to answer the following questions on your own and then together with your team:
Am I upholding my role as a growth facilitator/team member by welcoming and valuing the insights of everyone without preconceived judgments or labels?
- How am I encouraging the quiet and introverted voices in the team to join the conversation?
- Do I tend to present to the team an end-solution looking for their approval? How is this sabotaging their willingness to self-organize and collaborate?
- Are we being transparent when sharing information with each other, or are we keeping pieces of it to ourselves in order to protect our turf, thus perpetuating silo-thinking? (By the way, transparency is a fundamental condition to future-proof your organization).
- What do we need to start doing differently in order to start trusting each other?
The answers might be an awakening for you and your team!
Take the problem to the team
One of the major contributions a team member can make to the whole organization is anticipating problems. If as a manager you are committed to creating an environment for distributed decision-making, we suggest that once you identify a problem, you stop trying to fix it solo and instead take it to the team.
Your role as a manager is to help your team make sense of the situation, keeping the focus on the customer and considering carefully the work that needs to be done to delight them.
Maybe you are wondering how to involve the right people at the right moment. Here are some considerations:
It is important that people who are impacted by the decision are somehow involved in the decision-making process. As my colleagues Dr. Reg Butterfield and Dr. Ross Wirth suggest, bear in mind the complexity of the decision when considering who to involve as they may be in a role and yet not have the developed skills for all the decisions that become necessary as things change — hence the importance of the coach being aware and reacting accordingly in a supportive manner.
Consider the subsidiarity principle, which states that decisions should be made at the lowest level possible which includes all the people who have to live with the result. Also, ponder the pros and cons of early involvement and the coaching opportunities that this presents.
The Challenge for the next 14 days
We love stretching you with our 14-day challenge. This time you will be taking the challenge to the next level by including your team. We encourage you to do the following:
Pick a problem that you are tempted to solve on your own and bring it to the team. Explain the facts in the most transparent way. Do not offer your proposed solution or any judgment whatsoever.
Decide together if all the right people are sitting at the table. If necessary, invite whoever needs to be there to join the conversation.
Identify together how this problem impacts the customer and how will the decision deliver better customer value. Keep in mind that all voices should be heard (it helps if you are the last one to speak).
Facilitate the conversation, trusting the team to go deep into the problem. Help them make sense of the discussion as it progresses by providing coaching feedback on what you see, hear, and feel is going on in the room as people interact (or not) with one another. For example, “Peter, I am not sure what you meant when you said, XXX, can you help me make sense from my perspective?”, “Jack, I notice that you did not comment on that part of the discussion, is there anything that you want to mention or add before we move on?”, “Anne, you mentioned ZZZ, which seemed to me to get under the symptoms of the situation, can you guide us through what that may mean for the decision we have to make?”. As a team, decide whether you want to take any action or not. Before moving on, ensure that there is a common understanding of what that decision is and what it means for each of them in their next steps, individually and collectively.
At the end of the discussion, provide feedback on the process.
Remember that if your organization has traditionally encouraged hierarchical decision-making or has looked for a scapegoat when decisions go wrong, it might be quite challenging to get the team to participate in the decision-making process. Fear might be a big impediment when it comes to speaking out. So be patient and do not expect a huge change at the beginning. People need time to build trust in each other!
Your coaching questions can help them build that confidence because you are not judging them. After all, it will be great when the team members are not only coming up with their own decision-making but also involving one another as a natural part of the process. They will learn this from your questions and intervention style. Mutuality is a powerful part of the success formula for individuals, teams, and organizations; this is what a good coach aims for.
What do you notice about your team´s ability to discuss the problem even when there are conflicting points of view? Are they able to identify potential solutions? Can you tell if the team members trust each other or is silo-thinking predominant? What are you doing to reduce fear in the team?
We would be delighted if you shared your experience with us by writing a comment below.
In our next issue of “Thinking and Working Differently”, we will keep building on Decision-making focusing on accountability. If you enjoyed reading this article and found the content useful for you, please give us a like and forward it to someone else who might profit from reading it.
