Management Challenges - Decision-Making
Don’t think you have to make all the decisions yourself
Previously you may have had to make decisions about your own work, perhaps how you tackled a specific task, when you worked on certain jobs, or possibly how well you did them depending on the time and resources available. Generally you were only accountable to yourself and your line manager.
Now when you make a decision it is likely to have a direct impact on others. You can be accountable to your team and your peers, as well as more senior management.
You could well be deciding who does what and when, to what standard, and what outputs are needed, also what your team’s performance targets are.
Effective decision making improves productivity, establishes trust with team members and reduces the likelihood of conflict.
Whatever the situation, don’t think that because you’re the manager you have to make these decisions in isolation.
If you can collaborate, especially with your team, to come to an agreed decision, the outcome is more likely to be positive, with greater commitment to carry it through, than if you dictate.
If team members are allowed to share their thoughts and ideas the agreed decision will have gone through a more in-depth critical evaluation which will result in a high-quality decision.
Involving your team in decision making, especially if it relates to operational matters, is going to take full advantage of the fact that they probably know more than you about the day-to-day processes and how any decision will impact on them. This means that the decision is going to be a workable solution. They are also going to be much closer to your customers. Not only will they be in a better position to understand how decisions will affect the customers, but they are also going to be the ones discussing the impact with them. If they’ve been involved in the decision-making process and have greater commitment, they are going to be in a better place to represent that decision to the customer.
When it comes to development and performance involve the individual in target setting. Quite often when asked to set their own targets, people will challenge themselves more than if the manager determined targets for them! Setting their own targets makes them more committed to achieving them. If someone does suggest a target lower than you’d like you can use it as an opener for a discussion and work towards a target you think is more appropriate (or you might find out something you didn’t know and the target they suggest is actually realistic).
What you will need to be able to do when you allow the team to discuss and make a decision is the ability to manage disagreement. Everyone should have the opportunity to be heard, and it isn’t unusual for ideas to clash. As a manager you need to be able to control the situation, so that debate is free flowing, but always on a professional level.
Make sure discussions are about ideas, and not personalised.
Use open ended questions to draw out more detail about suggestions.
Ask people to come up with any cons they can see with their own proposals.
Whenever a new suggestion is put forward see if anyone thinks there are any disadvantages – do this each time and everyone will know it’s ok to challenge, but also that everyone will be challenged.
Summarise back to people what you’ve understood to make sure you and everyone else has received the same message.
In those circumstances where the team can’t be included in a decision-making process, and there will be plenty, be open about how the decision was reached and why they couldn’t be involved in the process.
Remember, just because you’re the manager, you don’t have to make all the decisions on your own.
