In the Driver´s Seat Together!

Exploring Accountability in Distributed Decision-Making

by SILVIA CALLEJA DE RÖPKE

Image: Unsplash Magnus Östberg
6-minute read

In this article, we will lay the groundwork for creating accountability within your team. If you have been following us, you might have already started working with your team towards distributed decision-making. Probably you have noticed that decision-making is a complex topic, where some natural tensions show up. This article gets you ready to start navigating the dynamics of bringing the decision to the team.

Decision-making is at the core of every single organization, regardless of its size, industry, or whether it is set out for profit or not. To understand better the challenges of distributed decision-making, let´s start by defining it. According to my colleagues Dr. Reg Butterfield and Dr. Ross Wirth, decision-making is an act of choice, wherein a person or automated system selects a particular course of action from the available alternatives in a given situation. It is done to achieve a specific objective or to solve a specific problem (Management Minefields Newsletter October 2nd, 2022).

You might agree with us, that for a selected course of action or decision to be implemented, the team member making the decision should have not only the power to make such a choice but also the authority to dispose of the resources necessary to make such a decision happen. Without this authority, the decision remains at best a proposal, but certainly not more than that. How many times throughout our coaching experience have we run into frustrated managers trying to empower their team members to make decisions, while at the same time depriving them of the adequate conditions to make this happen?

Let´s imagine that you as a manager have carefully made sure that whoever is making the decision has been awarded the authority required to do so. The decision is carried out and the outcome can be either a success or a failure. It is easy to be accountable for successful outcomes, but what about when things go wrong? In many organizations, the decision-maker tends to either hide, blame someone else, or avoid any sort of accountability. None of these options is positive for building trust within a team or for fostering and encouraging distributed decision-making. Stepping up when a decision turns out to be “wrong” is a difficult thing to do. However, let´s remember something:

For each decision made, someone is responsible, and someone is accountable for it.

Here we would like to take a moment to clarify the difference between accountability and responsibility. These terms are often confused, leading to misunderstandings about who has the duty to answer for what.

Accountability — is a duty to answer for the success or failure of a decision. In most organizations, once your team decides on a course of action, you as the manager have the duty to answer for its success or failure.

Responsibility — is the duty to make a decision. It is possible for a person to be both accountable and responsible, although these may be separated.

One important thing to take into consideration is the fact that if you as a manager delegate decision-making authority to one of your team members, you still are accountable for whatever choice this person makes. In other words:

Accountability cannot be delegated!

Therefore, make sure that whoever you entrust with a decision has the appropriate competence and experience to do so, a clear alignment with the organization´s purpose, and a good understanding of the complexities, risks, and impact of the decision.

The Challenge for the next 14 days

There comes a time in the life of every manager to let go of making all decisions and start trusting their team members can choose the right course of action. We would like to encourage you to proactively initiate the conversation that will lead to distributed decision-making within your team. If your organization´s or team´s DNA has been long characterized by finger-pointing, finding scapegoats or bluntly avoiding accountability, you might need to be even more thorough and careful when laying out the groundwork.

Be uncompromising when it comes to accountability. However, when the outcome of a decision is below expectations, we suggest you commence as follows:

• Stick to the facts and don´t make it personal. Blaming the decision-maker at a personal level will not make the situation better but will only diminish trust within the team.
• Make sure that you understand the reasons that lead to choosing a given alternative beyond others. Do not accept excuses, but at the same time encourage your team to try to find the lessons learned in the process. It is not always about the outcome, but more about strengthening the decision-making muscle of your team members.
• Start creating an environment where each team member is not accountable to you but to the whole team. This will encourage collaboration and mutual accountability among team members.

For the next 14 days, we encourage you to start practicing these recommendations whenever you and your team are analyzing the outcome of a chosen action path. Try to remain very conscious about the role you play in creating the right trust environment and safe space for this conversation to happen. If possible, debrief with your team on what they noticed and what they need in order to feel more comfortable making decisions.

Decision-making is at the core of every organization. If you find this topic fascinating, we encourage you to read our Newsletters from September 25th and October 2nd, 2022. Did you enjoy reading this article and find the content useful for you? If so, please give us a like and forward it to someone else who might profit from reading it.