Forms of decision making participation
Recently I had a chat with a colleague of mine. He coached me about how to solve a problem in a team where speed of decisions and execution were essential but progress was slowed. We realised that this was because there were too many cooks and especially too many cooks with strong opinions. Even people outside of the team were involved in the decision making process and we were actively seeking their inputs.
Shared decision making is great and I think it’s the most effective way to align a group of people and create value together. But there are different levels of decision participation. I figured there is a funnel for decision making:
- Giving input before the decision making process
- Challenging decision drafts and thus influencing decisions
- Making the actual decisions
- Using a veto on a decision to stop progress
We often put all of these funnel steps together under “decision making” and end up with large groups being involved in all of these aspects. In the future I want to try to get better at clarifying upfront which of the decision funnel steps I want someone to be involved in and which one I don’t.
An example: imagine you’re in a project with a more senior person on your team and you appreciate their participation in decision making. It might be that you want them to help with “Using a veto on a decision to stop progress”. But the way you approached and invited them to participate makes them feel they are supposed to be involved in “Making the actual decisions” or “Challenging decision drafts and thus influencing decisions”.
You might end up in hour long discussions because of this mismatch in mutual expectations. How do you get out of this situation? If you haven’t yet started a decision making process, clarify roles and expectations upfront. If you’re in the middle of a process, use a simple adjustment like “Let me and the others make a decision. We’ll let you know what we’re deciding and why. You’ll have a veto right and can stop that decision. Does that work for you?”.
This might unblock you and help you make faster, better, more empowered decisions. And it will empower your senior peer to be kept in the loop and have influence. Not the influence to get exactly what they want — but the influence to not get what they don’t want! That’s a huge difference.
