Team Decision-Making Methods

There are several ways teams can make decisions. Unfortunately, on many teams decisions are made by those who speak out the most. The team operates under the assumption that silence means agreement. What is wrong with this assumption? It doesn't verify the commitment of each team member to support the decision. I have seen numerous examples of team members not acting in accordance with a decision made at a meeting. When confronted, these members say things like, "You guys thought that was the best way to go. I never said I agreed with that." To operate as a united team, you need a procedure for checking how each and every member feels about the option the team is considering. This can be done in a variety of ways.

Democratic Decision Making

The democratic approach to decision making is to use voting procedures. A civil and open debate is conducted , and then members declare which option they think is best. The majority rules. We expect our legislators to operate in this fashion. I hope your team does even better than our government officials. Your team's charter should specify its decision-making standards. It should state whether a simple majority is all that is needed to make the decision or whether a higher standard, such as a two- thirds or four-fifths majority, is required. Open debate must be respectfully continued until the vote satisfies the team's majority rule.

If your team chooses the democratic voting approach, you must include three other rules in your charter. First, the size of a quorum must be determined. Is the number of votes needed decided by the number of members who attend a particular meeting or by the number of people identified as team members in the charter? Second, it should be stated that all team members agree to abide by any decisions made in accordance with the majority rules approach whether they were in attendance at the meeting or not. Your team may allow for absentee ballots, although the downside of this is that those people will be voting without the benefit of hearing more of the debate. It is crucial that all team members agree to act in accordance with the decision and further agree not to bad-mouth the decision outside team meetings. Third, the team needs a rule regarding how long a decision can be delayed in order to gain the needed majority. Some teams I have worked with operate under the rule that a decision can be postponed up to three times if the needed majority is not achieved. After that, the option receiving the highest number of votes (i.e., the plurality choice) is to be accepted. These same three rules should also be included in team charters that insist on consensus decision making.

Consensus Decision Making

Ideally, teams come to consensus decisions. Consensus decisions require that each and every team member agrees to support a plan of action that represents to the team the best among imperfect options. The research on consensus decision making by teams is clear: Consensus decisions produce higher quality solutions to complex problems and build a sense of ownership and commitment to follow through with appropriate actions. However, to truly reach a consensus, team members must be patient. They must be open to fully understanding the spectrum of ideas and opinions associated with the issue. Beware that some team members may go along with the decision advocated by the more vociferous members simply to avoid arguments. As team leader, you need to help confirm whether everyone on the team truly believes that the option chosen is the best among the ideas generated by the team. Decisions that involve merely averaging, compromising , and finding the middle ground do not represent true consensus.

I have been on jury duty twice and was proud to see that we, ordinary citizens , can apply the principles of consensus decision making to come to difficult but just conclusions. In both cases, the jury sat through the presentations of evidence and testimonies without comment. The system requires the separation of listening to facts and testimony from the process of making a decision. When we got to the deliberation stage, we went around the circle stating a fact or two we thought the other jurors should keep in mind. We did this without revealing how we were going to vote. Then we passed around sheets of paper and conducted a secret ballot straw vote to discover our collective decision at that point. We used a secret ballot so that members would not feel the need to dig in their heels and defend their point of view during subsequent discussions. We explored the key facts and after a couple of hours voted again. In both cases we reached a unanimous verdict.

What if one member of your team holds out? Consensus decision making actually provides veto power to each team member. You don't want members giving in just for the sake of getting the meeting over with and you don't want to have people digging their heels in just to save face. If one member, or a small minority of team members, disagrees with the option preferred by the rest of the team, ask the dissenter(s) for suggestions on how to modify the option to make it more palatable without undoing the essence of the option. You may have to declare a brainstorming period in which all members can speculate on ways to adjust the option without yet committing to the ideas thus generated. After the brainstorming, you need to push the team back to the work of making the decision. This is another situation where you may need to use the rule in the team charter regarding how long you can afford to postpone decisions before achieving the consensus. Deadlines must be met. Remember, the purpose is not to achieve an ideal state. The purpose is to choose among imperfect options generated by the brainpower of the diverse perspectives of team members in a manner that gains their commitment to follow through on the decision.

Consensus decision making takes time. But the investment is worth it if the process educates all members of the team about the complexity of the issues. It is especially worth it if the process gains the united commitment of the whole team to follow the same path . Consensus decisions are almost always better than the decision that would be made by the average member (which is basically the same thing as majority rule). When teams incorporate the wisdom of its many members, they may achieve synergy. Then the decision is better than what could have been produced by any one member. Exercise 18 offers some fun in an activity you can use with your team to prove the value of consensus decision making.

It should be noted that sometimes a team might not have the power to actually make decisions. In many organizations, the team charter calls for the team to make recommendations and then for management to decide whether to accept and implement the recommendations made. Management must manage and be held accountable to the stakeholders involved. Customers demand time frames and quality standards. Investors expect cost-effectiveness and productivity. Other work teams in the same company may be impacted by the decision, and thus someone must help coordinate these decisions. While it is generally true that people closer to the action have insights that may lead to wiser decisions, management must ensure that the decisions are in accordance with agreements made with the relevant constituencies. However, it would be foolish of management to institute a system where teams are making recommendations that are not usually accepted.

Teams must be educated on the criteria the organization must use in its decision-making processes. Again, the team charter must be clear regarding these criteria. While consensus decisions might be preferred, provisions must be made for those circumstances where management (or a joint committee in a unionized setting) must decide to gain closure on an issue. The key to whether people will accept and act on such decisions lies in the manner in which the discussion and debate were handled. People must feel their voice was respectfully heard even if they were unable to control the final outcome. The use of teams to aid the business decision-making process must have practical considerations. The use of teams in organizational settings is not an academic exercise.