Tag Archives: decisions

So what’s your position in all of this then?

As discussed superficially in previous chapters, when you really drill down to it, decision making is making decisions about decisions. This isn’t just semantics. It’s a real issue.

For example, are you a top-down decision maker? By this I mean are you prepared to delegate to others? This of course encourages other sub-decisions, lots of them about:

1. Who do you delegate to and
2. what decisions do you delegate to them?

There’s no clear cut answer to this and in my experience it’s sensible to share the responsibility as wide as is practical. This is not, as you might suppose, group protection, in that if the decision is wrong they are hardly likely to sack the entire decision-making team. Don’t kid yourself. It happens.

Eve of destruction – not

My ethos is to ensure that no one person below me cannot make nor implement a decision in isolation that can destroy the department or Company.

This means an appreciation of the risks involved and I suppose when you really distil it down I’m giving that person an opportunity to explore, experiment and the freedom to do so with the certain knowledge that a wrong decision may be inconvenient but hardly fatal. Not everyone of course is in a situation where they can delegate in this way. And of course not every person who is delegated to necessarily has the highest levels of self accountability and maturity in order to make that decision and more crucially face the consequences of a wrong decision.

A useful test

A useful test here is to try and observe the person you hope to delegate the decision to in terms of their past performance and their attitude. By this I mean are they:

1. Self-accountable, or
2. is their immediate default position to look for a scapegoat?

In various companies that I have been in control of over the years, on every occasion where I have seen scapegoating take place and have ignored it, marginalised it, or hoped it would go away, I and the department or company have lived to regret it. – sooner of later!

Thus my golden rule which I recommend whole heartedly, is that:

• You need to be UTTERLY convinced that EVERY person in your decision-making team is not likely to default towards scapegoating.

Clinging

Another golden rule of mine is never to cling to a decision made by others.

By this I mean if I have delegated and the subordinate makes the correct decision – then in my book they get all of the acclaim.
My glory, assuming I wanted any, would be internal because I’d be delighted that I had the confidence to delegate wisely. In short do not demoralise or undermine a subordinate who has done a first rate job, made a correct analytical decision through claiming it’s your own wisdom and not theirs. Everyone will see through it sooner or later.

Another decision about decisions, is do you expect the subordinate to tell you what their decision is before they implement it or do you trust them enough to just let them get on and do it? Either way, what’s your rationale for making that decision within a decision?

But what about the ‘chemistry’?

There’s of course interpersonal chemistry involved here and please be aware of how easy it is to demoralise a well-intentioned subordinate.

If they consult you and you reject their proposal, then professionally explain precisely why. It’s very old-fashioned and highly inappropriate to say nothing of being unprofessional, merely to say “No” without explanation.
My general views is that my obligation at the top of the tree and indeed when I’m mentoring other people, is that I need to build my trust and their trust in their decision-making processes.

People have to start somewhere. Otherwise nothing would happen.

Naturally people are quite nervous about making decisions in a commercial environment when they haven’t done so before. Nevertheless if they are going to progress up the management tree, assuming that that is what they want to do, or perhaps more prosaically they merely wish to become more competent in their current job role (no bad thing at all of course), then helping them find their own confidence, is both commercially pragmatic– and decent thing to do.

Having said all of this you have to ask yourself if they really are capable?

Are you sure?

Your chosen subordinate may well be willing but without experience, maturity or ability or any of these in combination, their best attempts are doomed to failure. Not only will they demoralise themselves but they will catalyse the criticism of their team members.

I’m not of the opinion that throwing a non-swimmer into a swimming pool is sensible in any respect, either literally or metaphorically.

Thus you may indeed want to bring somebody forward and elevate them in terms of their accountability, but do please first check with them and perhaps their immediate line manager that they are capable of the task.

Finally in this chapter, here is something else to think about. If it turns out that none of the subordinates engender sufficient trust in you that they have the necessary attributes then, quite clearly, you have a recruitment problem on your hands. Am I right or am I right?

Or put differently, why on earth did you select them to be decision makers within this team?

Part 9 will follow in a day or so.