Team Productivity: Setting Your Team Decision Process Part 1

Here is How to Improve Team Morale and Efficiency in One Step

When I was asked by a client to write a bit about a Team Decision Process or Model, I thought that since we had been managing like this for 25+ years, it would be simple.  8 hours of research later, we are still convinced that this is a great practice.  It plays directly into the center of the transparency and empowerment movements.  We are not advocating that Teams make all decisions, just that your process is written, agreed to, and people understand it.

Research agrees that a Team Decision Process increases productivity.  An example is shown below.

“The level of agreement among a firm’s top executives about how things are done in that firm has a variety of important implications.  For example, agreement about a firm’s decision‐making norms may allow members of the top management team (TMT) to focus on the substance of their most critical decisions and not get bogged down in debates about the process.  In the present study, data from 65 firms in two industries were used to identify determinants and consequences of TMT agreement about the comprehensiveness of the strategic decision process.  Results for consequences indicate that the level of TMT agreement was positively related to organizational performance.”

From https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/(SICI)1097-0266(199701)18:1%3C63::AID-SMJ835%3E3.0.CO;2-N.

If you want to improve your teams’ productivity, read on!

Our Productivity Seminar covers these and many more topics in an experiential way.  www.dataanalysis.com/speaking  Info@DataAnalysis.com.  Contact us to bring Darrel Raynor in-house to help uncover productivity drains and to help you break free of habits that have sprung up over the years.

This part 1 of 2 posts discusses Why and How to set your Decision Processes to improve your Team Productivity.  The upcoming Part 2 post will discuss several decision processes.

Why You Want a Published Set of Decision Processes

Early in my career, I witnessed behaviors in others and I also did not always accept others decisions easily.  Upon examination of why I felt disenfranchised or otherwise not on board, and listening to countless people gripe about decisions, two areas came up.

1. When people thought they had high influence or decision making power, then another overrode them, that is a high dissatisfier.  Sometimes out of a false sense of collaboration, decision makers are vague about their process, allowing people to think they have more power than they really do.  This is much worse than laying out a good decision process ahead of time and declaring which flavor to use in each decision making situation.
2. When people thought they were just advisors then are asked to weigh in as if almost to decide, that is a high dissatisfier.  If someone thought they would not be involved or just asked a couple of questions, then the spotlight is on them for a formal declaration, they feel trapped and put on the spot, allowing others to blame them for the decision.

These and other situations and hard feelings can be mostly avoided by having a declared set of decision processes.  When a particular decision comes up, simply declare your process and work through it.

Example Decision Process Outline

While we will cover more decision process specifics in part 2 of this 2-part post series, here is only one of several good decision process outlines, which is a Team-Based Decision Process.

1. Say something like, “The Team will decide this one, using our Team-Based Decision Process documented here <url>.”
2. The three people that know the most about this are: <name1, name2, and name3>.
3. Say, “Are we in agreement that these three should collaborate as the 3 DM’s?”
4. Store documents and reference url’s in our collaborative environment here <url>.
5. The rest of the team should volunteer their opinions in writing in <threads> there by <date>.
6. The 3 DM’s will draft their position there by <date>.
7. The 3 DM’s will request information from others if they need it.
8. If anyone thinks we need a short meeting to tease out any remaining information, please read the draft and threads and post your meeting request by <date>.
9. The DM’s will make and document the decision there by <date>.

How to Implement Your Decision Process

Moving to a stated decision process is a Business Transformation Change Effort.  We have found that just dumping a process and announcing a time or two in email and staff meetings is not enough.  You must have a plan, convince people to work with you and your process, and lead by example by demonstrating it working successfully.  We cover more about this here www.projectvictories.com/author/draynor.

Here are a couple of quick steps that you will have to highly customize depending on your culture, your personal standing in the organization, and other factors.

1. Write down a few flavors of your decision processes (team, executive, vote, whatever).
2. Ask for feedback on them from several influential people in the areas you seek to change.
3. Adapt your processes from the feedback and publicly acknowledge those who helped.
4. Write down your Change Management Plan to foster adoption and ask for feedback.
5. Ask for help in implementing from all the people you seek to use the change.
6. Execute and ask for feedback and adapt along the way.
7. Don’t forget to model the behavior in your decisions publicly.

Our most popular soft skills course covers these and many other topics in an experiential way, and while useful for everyone, is especially valuable for those in or seeking or wanting to improve their performance in formal or informal leadership positions.

Topics include: Who We Are & What We Do as Leaders, Change Yourself First, Set and Fulfill Expectations, Lead By Example: Model the Behavior You Want, and many more. www.dataanalysis.com/training/courses/impactful-leadership-and-management-best-practices-for-supervisors-to-cxos

What Should Leaders Do to Leverage Decision Processes?  Your Thoughts?

Thoughts on how you can best improve your skills that we did not touch on?  Good luck and keep your eye out for ways to improve your decision processes for your teams!

Your path to business success.