Empower teams with a decision-making framework for greater speed and efficiency.
Making Decisions
Get Others to Make Some
The Role of a Leader as a Conductor
Peter Drucker compared the role of a leader to that of a conductor in an orchestra. A conductor guides the professional orchestra with minimal direction, leaving the players as masters of their own domain.
Drucker said staff should be able to say “yes” daily to these three questions:
Do people notice what you did?
Are you treated with dignity and respect by everyone you encounter?
Are you given the things you need—education, training, encouragement, and support?
If your staff can answer "yes" to these questions, you have an exceptional culture. Drucker often emphasized achieving superior performance by embracing desirable values, such as Alcoa’s zero-accident value.
Outstanding Performance and Fear of Failure
Outstanding performance is incompatible with a fear of failure. Drucker understood that great leaders fail often but succeed more significantly and frequently.
Great leaders recognize failure earlier than their peers and are quicker to take corrective action or abandon a failing initiative.
Many organizations suffer from a pervasive fear of failure. If an earlier decision was wrong, leaders should either make necessary corrections or abandon the initiative altogether.
Those who make decisions and achieve more wins than losses should be celebrated as valuable, more so than managers who only back a few “safe” winners. Monitor failed projects and promote them as learning experiences. Encourage the mindset that a decision made—even if wrong—is better than no decision at all.
Decision-Making Process
Effective decision-making requires understanding the decision-making process. Drucker believed managers needed to be educated in this process to ensure they:
Make enough decisions.
Are unafraid of failure.
Understand when no decision is required.
Drucker likened an unnecessary decision to unnecessary surgery. He analyzed the decision-making process into a "decision-making tree":
Action is needed.
No action is required.
Further investigation is required.
Self-Renewal and Balance
Drucker also preached self-renewal, emphasizing the need for balance, outside interests, and passions beyond work. Leaders should:
Pursue hobbies and other passions.
Stay hungry for new management concepts.
Leaders who lead full lives are better, more balanced, and more positive. They are easier to work with and more effective in their roles.
David Parmenter is a speaker and author of Key Performance Indicators (Wiley). Visit www.davidparmenter.com.
ACTION: Adopt regular abandonment.
Performance Decisions
Making Decisions: Get Others to Make Some By Howard M. Guttman
Decision-making—the ability to choose the right path among competing alternatives—remains a hallmark of effective leadership. However, today, delegating decision-making responsibility has become a sign of high-performance leadership.
Decision Overload and Fatigue
Having one person make multiple daily decisions can lead to decision fatigue, where the quality of decisions declines as the day progresses. This often results in impulsive actions or indecision.
Delegating decisions is smart. It:
Leverages the capabilities of the team.
Recognizes that global enterprises are too vast and complex for one-person rule.
High-performance leaders can effectively delegate decisions without shirking their responsibilities by following these five principles:
1. Create the Right Context
Delegation can be risky if teams are not aligned with the strategy or lack the capability to make decisions. In high-performance cultures, decisions are distributed—not simply delegated—under controlled conditions. Leaders can confidently hand off decisions when teams are:
Aligned with the strategy.
Accountable for success.
Clear on goals and responsibilities.
Agreed upon decision-making protocols.
Transparent in relationships.
2. Set Decision-Making Ground Rules
When handing off decisions, ensure there is clarity about who makes decisions and how they are made. Without this, confusion arises, slowing decision-making and reducing accountability.
Teams must agree on the decision-making mode for each key decision:
Unilateral: One person makes the decision with no input.
Consultative: One person decides after seeking input from others.
Consensus: Everyone provides input and agrees to the outcome.
Clarity on these modes avoids confusion, hard feelings, and inefficiency.
3. Use a Common Decision-Making Process
Decision-making is a transferable discipline. When distributing decision-making, ensure team members:
Define the decision.
Lay out objectives.
Generate alternatives.
Weigh the benefits and risks of each.
This ensures all bases are covered before conclusions are drawn and makes it easier to review decisions later.
4. Streamline Decision-Making Processes
Examine your current processes for decision-making. Identify and reduce:
Lag time between asking for decisions and their implementation.
Overlapping, competing systems and structures that create delays.
Simplifying processes removes barriers to effective decision-making and boosts team motivation.
5. Provide the Right Venues
Let teams tackle real decisions that make a difference. Ensure they:
Know how to ask the right questions.
Process information effectively.
Test the integrity of their conclusions.
Remove complexity so there is a clear line of sight from decision-making to implementation.
When teams are aligned, equipped with the necessary skills, and free from systemic noise, they relieve decision-making pressure and drive the organization toward its goals.
Howard M. Guttman is the principal of Guttman Development Strategies and author of Coach Yourself to Win (McGraw-Hill). Visit www.coachyourselftowin.com.
ACTION: Delegate some decision-making.