How to Make Decisions as a Team
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A useful tool for any team: how to make decisions more effectively.
When it comes to the process of making decisions, and the ability for teams to embrace decisions and changes, many teams and leaders can use a little help.
Teams sometimes struggle around making decisions for a few reasons. What I see as the most common being:
The overwhelm of differing opinions, perspectives, and directions offered by different people.
Not gathering input from the team, causing people to feel unheard and not considered.
Not having a clear way to come to a decision, and people being unclear as to their role in the decision making process.
If a decision is made that isn’t popular, people push back or (directly or indirectly) sabotage the outcome.
Many teams have a director, manager, leader, or team captain that generally calls the shots. While that can make things more efficient, a downside to a sole decision maker (especially depending on how they go about making decisions) is that decisions can be made without additional valuable input and perspectives. This can lead to making poorer choices, some that may have extremely negative consequences, and it can also lead to teams feeling unheard or like their leader is a dictator.
Having access to different opinions is great — it’s healthy to have dialogue that allows us to see more angles. Considering more options and input helps guide teams and companies to make better choices. Also, when we’re making decisions, we want to be as efficient as possible (while still making people feel heard).
Here’s a little model on how to help with that when you’ve got a decision to make as a team:
1. Decide your method for making the decision
There’s generally three different main methods you can use here:
1) One person will make the decision (a leader, boss, team captain, etc.).
2) Everyone comes to a unanimous group consensus. People share thoughts, have debate and dialogue, and a decision is made once everyone agrees.
3) A majority. Take a vote, the majority wins.
It is useful to be extremely clear about the process with the team from the outset so you don’t confuse people and create chaos around how the final decision will be made.
If someone feels like they are an equal decision maker and and it turns out they’re not, they may end up feeling upset or disempowered when they learn that their input or vote did not hold the weight they thought it was supposed to.
Be clear about how a decision is going to be made from the outset so everyone knows how their input is going to be factored into coming to a final decision.
2. Get input from team members, regardless of the method you’re using
In all three scenarios, even if it’s just one person’s final call, it’s still valuable to get feedback from the team.
This is a smart idea for leaders for a couple key reasons. First, it allows for more perspectives and angles and options to be considered, The more brains the better when it comes to seeing potential wins, developing strategy, and avoiding pitfalls.
Secondly, when people have an opportunity to give input and have some ownership in decisions, they generally are more bought-in when the decision is made, Empowering people generally leads to people investing and taking ownership for the outcomes of decisions.
Gather input, be upfront about how the input will be used.
3. Not a fan of the decision? Disagree and commit
Finally, it’s really healthy for teams to have a proactive, clear foundation of understanding that once a decision is made, everyone gets on board. Even if people disagree with the decision, they must be willing to commit. This is an important mentality to adopt as a team to ensure that you can move forward together with everyone’s oars in the water, and all rowing the same direction.
The reality is that not every person will agree with every decision. And despite leaders trying their best to make everyone happy, even if they earnestly strive to make that happen, there is no way that is going to be the case with every single decision the company, leader, or team makes.
It is massively damaging to the team if people fail to buy-in, or they actively sabotage the team’s ability to move forward because they don’t agree with the decision. If someone’s opposition to the decision is so drastic that they need to leave the team or company because they just can’t get on board, that’s perfectly fine. Leaving is a better option to everyone involved than staying and drilling holes in the bottom of the boat.
Yes, there is nuance to this conversation, and there are many different types of decisions, some very big and impactful, some inconsequential. Take what you can from this and use it as best you can for the particular situation that you find yourself in. Being more effective at making decisions as a team is a useful skill. And like any tool, the more you use it the better you’ll get at it.
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This article was created by Galen Emanuele for the #culturedrop. Free leadership and team culture content in less than 5 minutes a week. Check out the rest of this month's content and subscribe to the Culture Drop at https://bit.ly/culturedrop