February 11th, 2014
A couple of years ago, I started paying a lot of attention to how organizations make decisions and deal with disagreement. I had come to see it as a really reliable marker for how inclusive an organization or a team truly was. As I started paying more and more attention to decision making, I also realized that this is an area where most organizations have a lot of room for improvement.
Here is what I see consistently from teams and organizations:
- There is no explicit framework in place for making decisions and dealing with disagreements.
- The people that talk the most have an inordinate impact on the conversation and any decisions made.
- Disagreement is either done in a dysfunctional, toxic way or it is avoided altogether.
- There is no clarity as to what has actually been decided and who is responsible.
The research that I have come across related to this pretty consistently shows that groups have some real advantages over individuals when it comes to decision making. While individuals can obviously make decisions quicker and more efficiently, groups win out in accuracy, creativity and buy-in of decisions made. Unfortunately, I think that groups rarely actually deliver on this potential.
We simply do not do groups very well, and we are not doing enough to support an evolving model of leadership where the leader is increasingly responsible for nurturing and facilitating a robust decision making process rather than simply making decisions.
How do you make decisions?
How does your organization make decisions?
Is there clarity and transparency? Is disagreement (done respectfully) sought out, valued and rewarded? Do people know what is expected of them, so that they can participate fully in the decision making process?
Does candid disagreement show up in your decision making?
When we talk about groupthink I think the image that generally comes to mind is of a foul, tyrannical supervisor who does not let anyone disagree or speak their mind. That may be how it happens once in a while, but I have come to see groupthink as, not only a very common tendency in most organizations, but also as not requiring any tyrannical supervisors.
Groupthink is the path of least resistance, if we want something different we actually have to pursue it. I think a good rule of thumb for managers to keep in mind is this, if you have gathered a group of people together to talk about something that matters you will either have a certain amount of disagreement or you will have dishonesty. One is very valuable to decision making and one compromises decision making.
Choose wisely.
Be good to each other.