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About this lesson
Teams sometimes implode when faced with making a team decision. A team leader needs to be able to bring the team through the decision making process with a good decision and team support for the decision.
Exercise files
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Quick reference
Team Decision Making
Teams sometimes implode when faced with making a team decision. A team leader needs to be able to bring the team through the decision making process with a good decision and team support for the decision.
When to use
These tools should be applied whenever the team must make a decision that needs team support to implement.
Instructions
The team leader should guide the selection of the type of decision and the decision approach that best fits the team situation.
Decision Type
The decision type is based upon the stability and reliability of the information upon which the decision must be based.
Decision Making Process
The decision making process should be selected based upon the time available to make the decision and the level buy-in needed to implement the decision.
Team Consensus
Many teams and team leaders prefer to use the consensus approach because of the high level of buy-in and support from the team. This is the approach I follow when helping a team work to consensus.
- Define the issue (write on flip chart).
- Brainstorm alternatives.
- Reduce a long list (10+ items) using a multi-vote.
- Carefully discuss the remaining alternatives and take notes on each.
- Decide which criteria you will use to evaluate your alternatives.
- Do a rating vote.
- Look at areas of disagreement and discuss them further.
- Vote again, if necessary.
- Discuss the outcome of the vote. Has everyone been heard?
- Can everyone support the decision?
- 00:04 Hello, I'm Ray Sheen.
- 00:05 From time to time, teams will face problems and
- 00:08 during the problem solving process, the team must make decisions.
- 00:12 There are some best practices that can aid a team in the decision making process.
- 00:18 I wanna start this discussion by reviewing the types of decisions that
- 00:22 should be made.
- 00:22 And I'm talking about problem solving decisions affecting team performance,
- 00:27 not what type of pizza we should order for lunch, or the name of the team mascot.
- 00:33 When making a decision, the team and team leader should consider the stability and
- 00:37 reliability of the information they have to set expectations for
- 00:40 what type of decision is appropriate.
- 00:42 What I mean by reliability of the information is whether the team
- 00:46 is dealing with facts or opinions.
- 00:49 It's not to say that opinions are not relevant but
- 00:51 just that facts are less volatile or subject to different interpretations.
- 00:55 And information stability is whether the information, be it fact or
- 00:59 opinion, is fixed or it's still changing in fluid.
- 01:04 When a team is working with fixed facts, make a decision.
- 01:08 There's no reason to delay.
- 01:09 Make the decision and move on and
- 01:11 you don't need to continue to revisit this decision as it is based upon fixed facts.
- 01:17 When the information is opinion based, but the team member's opinions are stable and
- 01:21 are not still changing, then make a preliminary decision on a direction for
- 01:25 the team and move forward.
- 01:28 But in this case you will need to revisit the decision at one point
- 01:31 once facts starts to become available.
- 01:34 This is just to confirm that the opinions were correct.
- 01:37 Sometimes, the team has some limited facts available but
- 01:39 the situation is still fluid and facts are still coming in.
- 01:43 The new facts can change the perception of the problem and the potential solutions.
- 01:47 The best decision to make at this time is to decide on boundaries for
- 01:50 viable solutions.
- 01:52 Based upon the facts that the team has, they can rule out options A, C, and
- 01:56 F, but options B, D, E, and G are still potentially viable.
- 02:01 With this more focused set of options,
- 02:03 now focus the information collection to get a stable set of facts.
- 02:08 Finally, sometimes, there are no facts available and
- 02:10 the team members are not sure what to think - their opinions are also fluid.
- 02:14 In this case, the best decision is just to move forward down any path
- 02:19 in order to start getting some facts and solidifying opinions.
- 02:22 The path will probably be wrong and the decision will need to be updated, but moving
- 02:27 forward to learn more about the problem is far better than deciding to do nothing and
- 02:31 get overrun by the problem.
- 02:33 I will use this matrix with the team when I know that we are not
- 02:37 in the region of fixed facts.
- 02:38 Just to help them set their expectations about the decision, they can understand
- 02:42 that while it might not be a final decision that is being made, the type of
- 02:46 decision will help the team move forward to a final solution to the problem.
- 02:52 Understanding the type of decision is great but
- 02:54 we still need a process to make a decision.
- 02:57 This grid illustrates the typical amount of time and the level of team involvement
- 03:01 associated with the different team decision making approaches.
- 03:05 Generally speaking, the more involvement the team has in the process,
- 03:08 the more buy in and support they have for the decision.
- 03:11 The fastest approach is for
- 03:12 the team leader to make the decision without team input.
- 03:15 While fast, it also has the least amount of team buy in.
- 03:19 Team members rightly feel ignored and irrelevant in the decision.
- 03:23 The next fastest approach is for the team leader to gather input
- 03:27 from several team members usually through individual conversations.
- 03:31 The team leader calls on team members that they trust to who they
- 03:34 believe have relevant information for the decision.
- 03:37 After getting that input, the leader decides.
- 03:40 This approach often gains the support of those who provided input and
- 03:44 if the decision primarily effects them, this can work well.
- 03:48 Continuing along the time scale, the next approach is for the leader to call
- 03:52 the entire team together and ask for everyone's input on the decision.
- 03:57 In the team meeting, team members can provide opposing perspectives to
- 04:00 other people's opinions and a productive debate can occur.
- 04:04 However at some point, the team leader calls a halt to the debate and
- 04:07 then the leader decides, after hearing all sides of the issue.
- 04:10 While the team members all feel that they had a voice,
- 04:12 they may not agree with the team leader's decision and
- 04:14 may feel like they had been manipulated into a decision.
- 04:18 A related approach that takes about the same amount of time is that the leader,
- 04:22 stops the debate and takes a vote on the decision.
- 04:25 Whatever option gets a majority of the vote wins.
- 04:28 While this is less manipulative and
- 04:30 the majority of the team buys into the decision,
- 04:33 the minority may not support the decision and actively work to make it fail.
- 04:38 The approach that will have the most involvement and
- 04:40 buy in is to decide with a team consensus.
- 04:43 But this can take a very long time.
- 04:45 There's probably a time and place for
- 04:47 each of the approaches during the life cycle of a team.
- 04:50 The team leader must decide which approach best fits the circumstances.
- 04:54 Is it more important to make a quick decision or to have full
- 04:56 support in buy in?
- 04:59 So let me show you the approach I use to speed the team along
- 05:02 when choosing to decide by consensus.
- 05:04 First, define the problem or issue, then brainstorm alternatives making sure that
- 05:09 everyone has a chance to contribute to the list of alternatives.
- 05:12 If the list is too long, I'd trim it down to ten or less with a multi-vote process.
- 05:16 Discuss the remaining alternatives, noting the pros and cons of each.
- 05:20 Determine the criteria that should be used to select the best alternative
- 05:24 then do a preliminary vote to see if you have agreement.
- 05:27 If you don't have agreement, ask individuals to discuss their vote and
- 05:30 explain their reasoning.
- 05:32 Vote again to see if you are now closer to agreement.
- 05:35 Discuss again any remaining issues to be certain everyone has had
- 05:38 a chance to be heard.
- 05:39 Based upon the last vote, ask everyone if they can at least support the decision
- 05:43 even though it may not have been their first choice.
- 05:46 If so, you have consensus.
- 05:50 Team decision making can unify a team or destroy it.
- 05:54 As team leader, manage the process well to help the team succeed.
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