Developing distributed decision-making competency
An earlier newsletter addressed all the places where managers & leaders can involve others in decision-making (from recognizing symptoms to decision implementation). We now need to address the competency needed to take on this role, especially generating options, determining the selection criteria, and making the decision. This work goes beyond delegating decision rights to helping others understand the limits of that authority and tools for self-management.
Establishing boundaries
The problem with explicit delegation is the tight boundary of authority associated with the delegation is not easily extrapolated to adjacent decisions. Further, if trust is not addressed beforehand, fear of breaching the boundary will limit that delegated authority to a single decision or small area of decision rights. This sets up a self-limiting process of having to make a series of separate decisions regarding what is delegated. There is also the continuing fear that such explicit delegation can be withdrawn at any time, thereby placing pressure on making the “right decision” that slows the process instead of increasing decision agility. The selection process will also narrow to safe, low-risk options, which further reduces the value received from delegating authority to subordinates.
This issue of swapping one form of decision bottleneck for another requires a more fundamental approach for empowering employees through a cultural change and/or focusing on broader ways to frame decision rights. Such a cultural approach would include and attitude of “it’s better to ask for forgiveness than to ask for permission.” This is a successful approach in many organizations, but it requires additional cultural attributes of transparency of action and clear alignment with the organization’s purpose. Otherwise, conflict and resistance will arise with actions viewed within the context of personal, not organizational benefits. This culture also requires an alternate understanding of empowerment than often encountered. Traditionally, empowerment is something that is granted to you by someone with positional authority. In this way, empowerment and delegation are seen as tightly intertwined. The alternate view of empowerment is one of testing boundaries and thereby learning the limits of one’s authority. This learning process can be as simple as testing ideas or consulting with others thereby giving them implicit voice in the decision-making process. The adoption of the Advice approach to decision-making makes this consultation process explicit in that a decision can be made if others are first consulted (regardless of what input they may have provided). A less extreme approach is the Consent process where others are given voice in a decision and their failure to provide a reasoned concern allows the decision-making process to move forward.
These cultural approaches to enable distributed decision-making require a trusting culture that involves others. Moving in this direction then sets up a challenge of changing the culture by focusing on trust (very difficult and requires a long time) and involving others (also difficult without establishing trust first) at the same time. At this point, the question arises “what should be done since this path to distributed decision-making is rather ambiguous?” True, this is the point of difficulty in that the vision of distributed authority for decision-making is in place which clarifies the performance gap without providing any clarity of possible actions to close that gap. We now need to turn our attention to some simple process changes that replace the hard controls built into delegated decision rights with soft controls of establishing a dynamic boundary with tension between opposing operating principles.
Enabling distributed decision-making with principles in tension (soft control)
The first point of focus involves addressing the fear of granting autonomy without have a roadmap of all possible situations that may arise — and then, the guidelines for action. At the heart of this fear is the very real possibility of anarchy once management controls are eliminated. Of course, this is not a binary choice between management control and no control. Instead, we need to rethink how control can be maintained in an alternate way that is softer — think more natural with built in tensions that provide a check and balance controlling mechanism. This counter force can easily be found in Purpose, though it must be clarified and made meaningful to everyone in the organization. A traditional approach here would be careful crafting of a Purpose Statement that is then pushed down into the organization and (hopefully) reflected in the performance management system. An alternate approach that produces better results is first clarifying the work networks that are in place for the production of work. Even with a traditional hierarchy, there is a network of networks in place that expands how we think of the “informal organization.” In this network of networks, the various networks emerge organically as people come together as work roles meet, leaving legacy relationships that can be called upon as new needs arise.
Within this network of networks is a single network construct that captures how the organization’s purpose is delivered. This series of network linkages provides the necessary “line-of-sight” from one’s work activities to fulfilling the purpose — delivery of the necessary product and/or service to a customer providing the revenue to not only cover the organization’s expenses but provide a surplus. An example is the janitor at the Houston Space Center who said his job was to “help put a man on the moon.” True, since simple housekeeping is necessary so others can do the many other tasks involved in this mission. In this way, all jobs are necessary to purpose fulfillment with nearly all activities associated with satisfying the needs of internal customers across this network. Too often, purpose alignment is “job done” with communication when that is the first step. Some organizations such as Haier formalize these relationships with contracts between internal micro-enterprises. Others take a much easier path with clarified performance agreements across the network. The natural tendency of unrestrained authority to gravitate to anarchy is then put in tension with purpose delivery and transparency of how that purpose is attained in a dynamic manner to adapt to changing conditions. Tension between purpose alignment and distributed authority essentially creates a soft control process that is self-stabilized without the traditional management oversight.
Guidelines for action
The tension discussed above permits action aligned with purpose but still falls short of providing all the guidelines necessary for action that would have otherwise been directed by a manager who gained decision-making experience through observing others and taking personal risks in the past. As above, there is a traditional approach to addressing this competency development — leadership (or management) development programs. However, these training programs are often very general and provide limited case studies at best. They lack the guidelines that are sufficiently general in being able to be applied to many situations without requiring additional clarification. The answer here is Effectuation, the study of successful entrepreneurs. And, the bonus is establishing a desired entrepreneurial mindset that is often valued for organization agility.
The five Principles of Effectuation are easily understood and applied –
1. Focus on what you can control while networking with others to influence what you cannot control. The key is not to waste time where little progress can be expected. This is not to “give up” but to work around constraints, which leads to #2.
2. Take action with the resources you have — keep moving toward your purpose. This simple statement directly addresses the bureaucratic tendency to wait on others — “not my problem”. If a problem is keeping you from fulfilling your purpose, it is your problem.
3. Partner with others to do more — expand and leverage your network. This is an extension of #2, taking ownership of problems and keep moving forward.
4. Recognize perfection is not possible, so make decisions with what is knowable and keep an eye open for learning that may occur when unknowns become known. This is a learning process that avoids fault finding and addresses changing circumstances as a new decision with sunk costs.
5. To enable #4, take risks if the loss is affordable. Do not overly focus on “big wins” by accepting what is possible — while avoiding the low probability occurrences that may be deadly where they to occur. Offload these unaffordable risks with partners (#3 above) if possible.
These five simple principles are easily understood and provide sufficient guidance for action that is bounded by purpose alignment. The following image captures the tension of soft control and guidelines for action. Shifting to distributed authority can be approached with simple steps and implemented within a local part of the organization where you have control and scaled to adjacent departments as opportunities arise. Further guidance is provided by a focus on the work with an explicit attempt to reduce or eliminate attempts to control the people doing the work. Management oversight then shifts from decision-making to coaching with time becoming available for reflection on how further improvements might be made. Finally, as a safety net, encourage transparency of purpose, motivation, and actions contemplated so you are not isolated but integrated with others who may be indirectly impacted.
Image — Futocracy Principles-cropped
Actions for your consideration –
1. Where are you a bottleneck in decision-making? What routine decisions should be made by others?
2. Do people understand how their role is connected to others? How does purpose alignment flow across the organization?
3. What would it take to encourage an entrepreneurial mindset as people are encouraged to test their boundaries?
