Decision Making Procedure Fixed Team Problems

Making decisions as a team requires a shared understanding and procedure for accomplishment. The confusion and strife that occurs because the team cannot make a decision will ruin any progress made on the work. In order for decisions to be made quickly, and the work to be completed on-time, on-budget, within quality, while the team still gets along, a known and agreed upon procedure must be used.

CONTACT Create-Learning to make this happen for your team.

 

How to Make Team Decisions

team building and leadership expert michael cardus

Situation

Working with a team of 12 people. They were struggling to make decisions as a team. The team manager Kim, had her goals, roles and vision clearly articulated, and the team members all agreed to that the goals and roles were understood and agreeable to their work.

The problem was deciding how, what and when to implement the detailed parts of the work. The lag was causing increases in the amount of time and cost to the company. Plus placing stress on Kim, because her boss the CEO of the company was putting pressure on her to “fix this”.

Intervention

In a 3 hour team building meeting, where the team came with a decision to be made. The above image was shared. Along with more prescriptive content on Selecting a Decision-Making Approach. Kim, with the team created “Decision Making Chart” defining which decisions she would make herself (Authoritarian to Consultative) which needed to be delegated to specific team members, and which decisions will be made by the group (Consensus to 2/3 majority vote).

A quick procedure and shared checklist of “Selecting a Decision-Making Approach”  was created, designed and agreed upon by the entire team, which can be used with the team and records each team members preferences and accountability and authority in each decision to be made.

Resolution

Kim reported that decisions were being made “faster and with greater buy-in from the team” and that her boss shared with her a compliment he received from another CEO of a key client of theirs. The compliment was “Your team was able to turn around our request in record time. We will be doing more business with you.”

Follow up with the team showed the following results;

  • Increased trust of other team-members due to a shared understanding of how decisions are made and who is accountable and has the authority to act upon those decisions.
  • Decreased amount of time make a decision. What used to take week, and even then people still did not agree on the decision. Now takes hours or minutes, and everyone leaves in agreement of the decision made.
  • Kim feels less stress and anger towards the team. She reported finding greater areas of cooperation and solutions.
  • The team has had their work and therefore responsibility increased, and they are thriving.

CONTACT Create-Learning to make this happen for your team.

Making decisions as a team requires a shared understanding and procedure for accomplishment. The confusion and strife that occurs because the team cannot make a decision will ruin any progress made on the work. In order for decisions to be made quickly, and the work to be completed on-time, on-budget, within quality, while the team still gets along, a known and agreed upon procedure must be used.

 

michael cardus is create-learning

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