7 Ways to Make Decisions Others Support
It doesn’t matter how decisive you are if your team doesn’t grab the rope and pull.
Worse yet, they might support you when you’re in the room, but drop the rope in disapproval when you’re gone.
The power of decisions is amplified by the number of people who support them.
Engagement:
People who feel left out, pull out.
Inclusion ignites engagement.
Engage others early and often.
Process versus decision:
Successful leaders distinguish between making decisions and the decision-making process. Even if you’re making the final decision, include others in the decision-making process.
Bad to worse:
Confirmation bias makes a rush to decision-making dangerous. In other words, once you’ve made a decision, you defend it, even if it’s a bad one.
7 ways to build buy-in:
- Seek input – withhold judgement.
- Explore ways suggestions might work.
- Ask, ‘What brought this to mind?” When you hear a surprising perspective.
- When you disagree with someone ask, ‘What am I missing?’
- Ask for different perspectives.
- How might a young person approach this? (Insert elder, man, woman, or new comer.)
- What does this look like from the front-line?
- How is this customer-centric?
- Forget your title. Titles give inexperienced leaders the feeling that they’re smart when they’re dumb.
- Keep your learning-hat on longer. Approach important decisions as a learner first and decision-maker second.
- Answer ‘why’ and ‘what’ before digging into ‘how’.
- Why does this matter? Answer ‘why’ before determining ‘what’.
- What are we trying to solve?
- What’s going to be better?
- How will things be better?
- Who is impacted? How should they be involved?
- Engage people in gathering data.
- After making a decision, set a future date to explore what you have learned and where you might adapt.
What causes lack of support for decisions?
How might leaders make decisions others support?
Good post. As my Dad used to say “People tend to be down on what they’re not up on.” Would love to see a post on socializing ideas upward–getting senior buy-in to a change agenda.
Thanks Dan. Love your blog!
#3 is awesome.
Let’s send Brian Moore our spreadsheet tomorrow to begin orders for Journalism. I”ll finish my edits today.
On Thu, Oct 20, 2016 at 6:27 AM, Leadership Freak wrote:
> Dan Rockwell posted: “It doesn’t matter how decisive you are if your team > doesn’t grab the rope and pull. Worse yet, they might support you when > you’re in the room, but drop the rope in disapproval when you’re gone. The > power of decisions is amplified by the number ” >
Another great framework, Dan. Your stuff always interesting and thought provoking. I clanged on the metaphor of pulling the rope in the email and then clanged again on the pic of all the guys (and none of the women). And you dissin’ us old people? (grin)
In my spin on how things work in these scenarios, the wagon pushers simply have a very constricted view and are not really asked for ideas or thoughts, but are just told to get the job done. And that rope is not the tool for improvement, but the insulator that isolates the wagon puller from the people and the wagon and the job of moving tires…
Thought you might like this poem:
The Boss may just be unaware.
Of Square Wheels always thumpy.
Our wagon rolls with much less push,
When communications aren’t so lumpy.
Involvement and engagement and continuous continuous improvement all revolve around asking for ideas, fleshing those out as you outline, and then also creating ownership. Having a few spins of success and trust and support also help build things.
One other idea to deal with confirmational bias is to have that appointed “Devil’s Advocate” person whose responsibility it is to look at things from alternative angles.
Have fun out there! Success breeds success.
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Successful leaders distinguish between making decisions and the decision-making process. Even if you’re making the final decision, include others in the decision-making process.
Have experience unfortunately with one who shows collaboration in groups. Asks for input, gathers opinion, then in private as prep for next meeting makes individual decisions or pulls a couple select members of the group and decides what will happen. Next meeting … “This is the way we are going”…
That comment above may not read correctly…it is meant to illustrate ‘fake’ collaboration and a habit of doing business outside the regular meeting, with just a couple allies in the group. That’s a great way to get people to “pull out”.
What causes lack of support for decisions? Where I work, sometimes there is an agenda against the management group. Union vs. non-union. Old vs. young, etc… Sometimes, people don’t want to support a decision simply because they don’t like you and see you as a threat to their way of life.
How can a leader make decisions others support? – Begin with the end in mind and pick the right team. Make sure the affected individuals have the right mindset and are culturally in tune with the goals of the organization. When we hire folks I often tell my managers to hire entry level employees based on character rather than experience. We can teach them the job, much harder to teach them “positive attitude”. Pretty soon as the workforce turns over, the voice of the positive folks drowns out the negative. The negative will either get on the bus or move on.
I identified with “Bad to Worse” and then apologized to my team. 😉
This article and comments are very important to me. They are helping me fix leadership issues in my organisation. Thank you Dan. Thank you all
Good tips for the decision making process and engage others in the process prior to make any decision, nice article.
Great post Dan.
In my experience many “title” leaders will not ask Why because reveals whether the team and organization is operating congruent with their values. The “get er done” leaders like to hear what’s being done and many times not why there are being done. The process to ask questions requires the person to operate in the space of a fascilitator and curious. I love to hear responses and see the wheels turning with the goal to increase awareness and performance. Questions help team members Create It, Understand It, and Own It.
Really good. Came across this morning. Enjoyed very much
Take a fist full of 30 one dollar bills and ask for 30 reasons/how we can do this.