From Clash to Consensus. The Fundamentals of Effective Team Decision Making

Throughout history, different types of organizations have required various decision making processes to produce effective results. The military organization requires structured command decision-making in which speed and obedience lead to success. The factory relied on rigid organization and a clear job definition. Today, the organizational imperative has shifted. Conformity and obedience are not the most desired qualities. Despite our bias to agility and bottom-up leadership, we are still using rigid and command decision making approaches in product development.

How can we create an environment where each individual feels liberated to share their view? How can we empower the team when decision making is clouded by people’s opinions or overruled by senior leaders? How can we use disagreement to create innovate products and services?

This presentation provides practical principles for Consultation. A process of collective decision making for Product Managers (and similar) to use in order to empower and lead high performing x-functional teams. The 5 fundamentals of Consultation include (still to be wordsmithed):

1. Collective Wisdom and Responsibility
e.g. identifying the problem, understanding all data available, etc. A culture of shared responsibility and ownership of results (‘disagree and commit’)

2. Removing the ‘you’ from your ideas
e.g. Detaching the ego from an idea, contributing, letting go and submitting to the group and accepting the reality that you could be wrong

3. Holistic decision making:
e.g. Reaching a decision through a focus on principles, honest and frank sharing, completely open listening and detachment from ego. Deciding through consensus, and not just by majority or by command

4. R-E-S-P-E-C-T
e.g. everyone should feel free and liberated to share their ideas–irrespective of who is in the room or the qualifications they have.

5. Unity above all else:
e.g. a united group is more important than making the right decision. A wrong decision can be overturned faster than a toxic environment can be cleaned.

These principles will be discussed by looking at examples for each, along with practical steps for participants to apply them to their everyday work environment.