deciding how to decide

The process of decision-making is a cornerstone of effective organizational management and personal leadership. For hundreds of years, traditional hierarchical structures have handled decision-making processes, where the chain of command dictates how decisions are made. Basically command and control 🛂.

In such organizations, one simply asks their boss to make a decision. Superiors are often happy to "help" as it reinforces their status, fulfils their primal need to feel needed, and personifies their control over the group. 

Mathew Barzum, in “The Power of Giving Away Power” talks very powerfully(excuse the pun) about this in his book, where the engrained belief that If you let go of hierarchy, chaos will reign…or so many leaders believe! However, in decentralized organizations, autonomy is pushed to the edge, empowering individuals at all levels to make decisions. The principle here is simple: only centralize what will accelerate the edge. This concept is very very very applicable to shifting things left. See my post series on Shifting Compliance Left.

If you let go of hierarchy, chaos will reign…or so many leaders believe

The way decisions are made DOES MATTER and impacts the efficiency, morale, and success of a group. Dennis Bakke talks extensively about this in his book “The Decision Maker” or the “Joy at Work” in what he calls the Advice model.  This model is based on the importance of treating people like people and not cogs (or kids!) ⚙️. We are all unique, we are all creative thinking individuals, we are capable of learning and we believe we are capable of making decisions, is the TL;DR in the Harvard Business Review's interview “Organizing for Empowerment: An Interview with AES’s Roger Sant and Dennis Bakke”.

Understanding various decision-making processes and choosing the appropriate one for each situation can lead to more informed, inclusive, and effective outcomes. This post explores different decision-making methods and emphasizes the importance of determining how to decide, focusing particularly on the consent-based decision-making approach which is based on the sociocracy method with origins in the Quakers.  ⚠️I am aware at this stage a bunch of bias will kick in so it really is up to you if you want to read on if you curious to learn new things!⚠️

Importance of Decision-Making Processes

Good decision-making processes are crucial because they affect not only the quality of the decisions but also the buy-in and satisfaction of the group members involved. Some reflection 🤔possible as we go through our iterative transformations? Effective decision-making processes can enhance transparency, accountability, and inclusiveness, leading to stronger and more sustainable decisions. Conversely, poor decision-making can result in confusion, conflict🤼, and disengagement among team members. 

These tensions are what we normally not good at managing and do not really lead to generative conflict and tends to pivot to interpersonal conflict. We will explore Principled Disagreements in future posts.(Source: theready)

Types of Decision-Making (Main ones)

1. Autocratic Decision-Making: Tyranny of the Supreme Leader Autocratic decision-making is where a single leader makes decisions without input from others. This method can be efficient in situations requiring quick decisions, but it often leads to low morale and disengagement among team members, who may feel their opinions and contributions are undervalued. For example if there is a fire in the building you want one person to be in charge🔥
2. Majority Vote: This could be seen as the tyranny of the Majority? Majority voting involves making decisions based on the preference of the majority of the group. While this method is democratic and can prevent the dominance of a single leader, it can marginalize minority opinions and lead to polarization within the group. This can also have interesting outcomes, e.g. Brexit
3. Consensus: This could be called Tyranny of the Minority? Consensus requires that all members of the group agree on a decision. This method ensures inclusiveness and broad agreement but can be time-consuming and may give disproportionate power to those who disagree, leading to a "tyranny of the minority" where a small number of dissenters can block decisions.
4. Consent Decision-Making Consent decision-making, a cornerstone of sociocracy, asks whether anyone has a reasoned and paramount objection to a proposal. This method balances inclusiveness with efficiency, ensuring that decisions do not negatively impact the group while avoiding the pitfalls of consensus and majority vote systems.

The really cool🆒thing is a group can use the consent method to decide how they decide, and hence it could be that they decide to give all the decision making authority to one person, which in this case would be subjecting themselves by agreement to the autocratic method…. but this would be by choice and again could be the right thing to do! 

Consensus(binary) vs Consent (range of tolerance)

Another important thing to remember is that Consent is NOT the same as Consensus(binary). Consent (range of tolerance) takes into account the extent to which people are willing to tolerate a decision – whether they will accept and endorse it, even if it isn't their top preference. In other words, while individuals might not be enthusiastic about the decision, they can manage to accept it.

So is there another way? Dynamic Governance and Consent-Based Decision-Making

Firstly this is not a binary decision. One has to choose the right decision making process for each situation. Gustavo Razzetti @ fearless culture, has a great post with a cool quadrant on how to potentiall go about this (who does not love a nice quadrant 😀).

Dynamic governance, or sociocracy, employs consent-based decision-making to create a more collaborative and responsive organizational structure. In this system, decisions are made when there are no significant objections, and objections must be based on the group's aims and needs, not personal preferences, so objections need to be empirical📐. This method encourages members to express concerns and work collaboratively to address them, leading to decisions that are broadly supported and more resilient. 

 Integrating Objections is key as this is the fundamental feedback loop improves the decisions and increase the buy-in from the group. You can see how this starts to link up with Agile practices or for those that love the finances busy work (not), practices like “Beyond budgeting” so well presented by Bjarte Bogsnes the Senior Advisor for Performance Frameworks at Equinor🛢️ in this very entertaining 17min video.

So how does Consent Method work in practice: 

In a nutshell it follows the following steps.  

• Proposal Presentation: A proposal is presented to the group. Anyone is empowered to present a proposal to improve value or reduce risk.
• Clarifying Questions: Members ask clarifying questions to understand the proposal fully. This is not an opportunity to raise other proposals. Focus is key.
• Quick Reactions: Members give quick, initial reactions to gauge the overall sentiment. Remember, reactions on the proposal.
• Consent Rounds: Members express any objections. Objections must be reasoned and related to the group's objectives.
• Integrating Objections: The group works together to address objections and modify the proposal if necessary. Is it safe enough to try?
• Final Consent Round: The modified proposal is presented for final consent.

All of this is done using Rounds to ensure everyone's voice is heard. Round are key for high performing teams given transparency is at the core. And here is Mural (source: fearlessculture) that helps you get started . Who doesn't love a good Mural 😉

Is this a pipe dream?

Well a growing number of organizations use similar decision-making methods to enhance inclusivity and effectiveness and they not small. You might recognise some:

• Informed Captains at Netflix: Netflix employs a model where decisions are made by those with the most expertise, who then inform and seek input from others, ensuring decisions are well-informed and broadly supported. - I can imagine some people thinking at this stage and rolling their eyes, yes but we not Netflix…. 
• Early Dissent and Commit at AWS: Amazon Web Services encourages early dissent and debate during decision-making but expects commitment to the decision once it is made. This fosters thorough consideration of alternatives and unified execution. –  more reinforcement bias at this stage…. we not AWS
• Advice Process at AES (Energy) by Dennis Bakke: AES uses an advice process where decision-makers must seek advice from those who will be affected by the decision and those with expertise. This ensures diverse input and informed decisions. — may be this one gets you thinking… that is if you have already abandoned this article ;-)

 But there are many more:

• The Zulu Nation in South Africa (link) – nearly 100 years practicing this.
• Buurtzorg, a home-care organization in The Netherlands with 14,000 employees (link) – over 20 years
• The Paris Agreement on climate change (link). Yes I know…. where has that landed… but think about it… it must be really hard to get all those people to agree in the first place… doing is another thing!
• The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) – (RFC 7282: On Consensus and Humming in the IETF (rfc-editor.org)). Read beyond the Title, the word Consensus is misleading. These guys take small (NOT) decisions… like how the internet runs ;-).
• Sun Microsystems
• Intel
• GitLab
• Chef Software
• Qatar Airways
• Zalando (McKinsey: Safe Enough to Try interview with their CEO)
• Autodesk
• UK Cooperatives (Link)
• Etc Etc Etc

So how does this help an organization?

If you really want a responsive organization that adapts, it's essential to consider the four dimensions of organizational needs:

1. Responsiveness, 
2. Participation, 
3. Doing, and 
4. Agreeing. 

These dimensions help frame how decisions are made and how work is carried out within the organization. I will not go into the 4 into detail here but focus more on the decision needs. 

So this is where Consent-based decision-making facilitates effective execution by ensuring that decisions are well-supported and aligned with the organization's goals by having good agreements. Lets face it we really do not have strong explicit agreements that are down on paper📜 most of the time. This means one party understood it in one way, another in another and another has selective memory!🧠

So long story short, Agreements are key and tapping into collective intelligence 🐝 to create and evolve decisions reduces how blindspots and increases empathy for others reality, a very real reality for them, despite you might not see it! This involves:

• Clarifying WHY: Ensuring everyone understands the reasons behind decisions. And keep it simple here....no fluff🦙.
• Designing Proposals: Crafting proposals collaboratively - Proposal or Radiating Intent are fundamental! Getting in writing📄
• Evaluating and Evolving: Regularly evaluating decisions and making necessary adjustments. We see this is architecture all the time.... any architecure that does not change it a dead architecture (tech wise).
• Ensuring Safety: Making sure decisions are good enough and safe enough to proceed.

By focusing on agreement through consent, decisions are not only effective but also inclusive and sustainable. Bottom line, you will have a higher rate of adoption, who would not want this!

Bottom line, you will have a higher rate of adoption

Benefits of Effective Decision-Making Processes

Goes without saying this all makes sense and is perfectly logic right? Yet we do very little of this. Implementing effective decision-making processes like consent-based decision-making can create happier, more transparent, and more efficient workplaces. By involving the right (not everyone) people and considering diverse perspectives (everyone's voice📢), organizations can make stronger decisions that are more likely to be supported and successfully implemented. 

I am sure you have sometimes asked yourself, why do they not adopt a way of working? why do they not just do it? why do they not get it? well ask yourself if they had any say in the process directly or indirectly, have they been part of the process, contribute, provide feedback, raise blind spots etc? 

So how could I start?

Like everything, slowly🦥. We not very good at understanding two basic realities at play all the time in organizations of people. Firstly if we truly People Positive (and NOT deterministic robots that are predictable!), that People are  naturally  motivated, capable of self-direction, and worthy of trust and respect (refer to Dennis Bakke in this article) and secondly, be Complexity Conscious, Organizations are complex systems that can't be predicted or controlled. If you try mass change, the organization WILL kick back. (parts sourced from : https://www.theready.com/)

One VERY basic place to start is to start using rounds. This will force those time hoarders in meeting like me to practice a bit more of active listening and get all the many voices of our very capable people in the room heard.

And as a good old English proverb says "Softly, softly, catchee monkey"🐒, which basically means that if do not rush or if you avoid being too hasty, then eventually you will achieve your goal - in other words, be patient.

Conclusion

Deciding how to decide is a critical step in creating effective and sustainable organizations. By understanding and implementing various decision-making methods, particularly exploring ones like consent-based decision-making, organizations can enhance inclusivity, transparency, and effectiveness. These processes ensure that decisions are well-informed, broadly supported, and aligned with the group's goals, leading to better outcomes and a more engaged and satisfied workforce.

For more detailed information on the principles and applications of sociocracy, refer to resources from Sociocracy For All, Netflix's culture page, and articles on the advice process by Dennis Bakke (source: Corporate Rebels) and AWS's decision-making methods.

As always, I have written this for me firstly as I am a believer that if you write things down you learn🏫 and to share with others my learning process or trying to make sense of things.