Victor Ortiz
Overview
The purpose of this blog post series is to provide a conceptual framework and a set of tools that dramatically improve your performance as a leader. No matter where you are in your organization, from construction crew or design/engineering team member, a foreman or project manager to corporate executive. New operations best practices, driven by lean and progressive design-build, require us to rethink leadership.
Objective
Welcome to this eighth post where we present more of what you need to know to become a High-Performance Leader! In this post we move from how we organize and staff project teams to how we lead teams to create Win/Win decisions.
High Performance Leadership: Win/Win Decision-Making
Welcome back to this High-Performance Leadership Blog Series. If you have not read Posts 1-7 yet, please consider doing so. They will set the stage for this discussion.
In Post #7, we discussed the importance of structuring teams to get the right input from the right people at the right time to make collaborative decisions. It’s hard enough to make decisions on our own. Now we assemble teams of smart people, chosen precisely because they have essential, but differing expertise and perspectives. Leaders must create and manage decision-making processes that welcome diverse input, consider diverse needs, and develop elegant solutions.
In this HPL blog post #8, we examine the importance of going for Win/Win decisions. I’ll share concepts and techniques to improve the chances of Win/Win outcomes.
Let’s define “Win/Win” decision-making. How would you know a great decision if you ran into one in a dark alley? What are the characteristics of a great decision?
Our first focus is whether we are making the right decision – technically, practically. Even when we think we know the best way to go, we can’t always get everyone to go along. If we compromise too much, decision quality and integrity may be degraded. If we use positional power to coerce and force compliance, we generate resentment and destroy team spirit. Then cooperation on the next big decision becomes elusive.
Sometimes, even great ideas don’t get implemented. What’s the source of the resistance? What does it mean to be “satisfied” with a decision?
Decades ago, practitioners of “The Interaction Method” identified three types of satisfaction that people must feel to commit whole-heartedly to a decision.
Substantive satisfaction means that we agree nothing critical to our success is missing or wrongly addressed. Is there any unacceptable cost or risk to the project or individual stakeholders? Are there any risks or benefits we have failed to understand? Do we have unspoken reservations? Is this a great solution? Is there a backup plan?
Procedural satisfaction is felt when we have been engaged, invited into the discussion, listened to, and our time was well used. Was the process efficient, inclusive, timely, thorough? Was the process fair? Do we feel proud of how we worked together? Was this a process you would gladly use again? Does the decision-making process exemplify our values and respect for people?
Psychological satisfaction is deeply personal. Do I feel respected? Were my ideas listened to and considered, even if my input wasn’t always the best idea? Were my needs, my team’s needs, my company’s needs fairly and generously considered? Were my teammates equally well treated? Did I feel safe to disagree, voice concerns or say “no” when I needed to? Do we have a culture of compliance and playing it safe, or a culture of curiosity, creativity and commitment to continuous improvement?
Is it worth the time and effort to help people work together and seek strong agreement? Let’s consider the alternatives to Win/Win decisions. There are only two – and they are always available when you can’t reach a Win/Win, or run out of time, money, or other viable options.
Life is full of big wins and little wins, big losses and little losses. When we go for a Win/Win, we try our best to avoid anyone feeling like a “big loser”. In a fair process, most of us can give up some small losses for some solid wins, such as the satisfaction that we came up with the best decision possible and did our best to keep each other whole. That intention is the essence of Lean Collaborative (“Relational”) contracts. Relational contracts use a shared risk/benefit structure. These contracts are very helpful, but skilled and committed leadership makes them work.
The fallback when Win/Win is elusive is a Win/Lose decision method. Sometimes a loss in one situation can be made up for with a win in another situation, or some other compensation. What we want to avoid is someone feeling so put out, so dissatisfied with the substance, procedure, or psychological consequences of a decision, that they turn a Win/Lose into a Lose/Lose. A focus on a quick decision, or getting our way, can blind us to the potential of collateral damage to team members and the project culture.
Note that the Lose/Lose options listed above are ways that “Losers” can make sure that “winners” don’t win either. These behaviors or tactics change a Win/Lose into a Lose/Lose in the desperate hope that negotiations will reopen. I’ll bet you have seen every one of these behaviors on a project, in politics, in families, in labor relations, etc. If we let our team relations degrade to such a point, recovery is very costly and difficult.
Decision-making in a democratic society or public arena is different than in hierarchical businesses. But, when the going gets rough, it is not uncommon for someone to suggest, “let’s just vote!” In issues of public policy, perhaps we accept that there must be winners and losers in a fair election. But in a business, there are hierarchical levels of accountability. The person with the highest level of accountability cannot afford to be outvoted. We need to skillfully deploy a range of decision-making options, any of which can produce a Win/Win outcome in the right circumstances. Each of the following options can be chosen based on the time and effort that is acceptable and the importance of achieving a “Win/Win” commitment to implementation.
The first three options in the arch from left to right are all based on a person in positional authority (a “boss) making a final decision. This can be a Win/Win, depending on urgency, the quality of the decision, and the level of satisfaction felt by those who must implement. In a “consensus”, everyone agrees at least enough to move forward. The boss is part of the “everyone” and shares “veto” power. Let’s make some key distinctions:
Decide and Announce: In an emergency such as a fire alarm, if some competent person yells, “This way out! Follow me!” chances are that others will agree and follow. Bosses like to think all their decisions fit this description, but the need for such unilateral decisions is rare. They may be justified in emergencies, and when regulatory or technical requirements mandate only one option. Leaders can still meaningfully engage others to develop the means and methods of compliance. Take every opportunity to develop your team’s leadership and decision-making skills.
Decide and Get Feedback: Sometimes, the best course of action seems obvious, and you act. But when your ideas get resisted and things are not going as planned, don’t dig in your heels. Get curious, not defensive. Model openness to feedback. Check whether some important issue has been overlooked, or some valuable enhancement could be made. This takes very little time and can avoid embarrassment (loss of face), rework and errors. People generally like to help make upgrades. Ken Blanchard, author of “The One Minute Manager” says, “Feedback is the Breakfast of Champions!” It’s also the breakfast of championship teams! At worst, you may find out that someone will suffer a loss you did not anticipate or there is other resistance. At least you can now address such issues openly.
Get Input Early and Decide: When a decision is needed to meet some upcoming deadline, why not involve key stakeholders to help you? Your chances of making a better-informed decision are higher and if you find everyone agrees with your initial inclination, you have a “consensus”. Share the “Win”. If consensus cannot be reached within the available time, everyone will know what the issues and tradeoffs were that led to the final decision. Everyone will appreciate the challenges. You will have more of a Win/Win situation, and respect for you is maintained or enhanced.
Consensus: In each of the three options above, engaging with others increases the chance that everyone buys in. Traditional thinking holds that one perk of a long career is that you finally get to make the decisions. You also get to be the bottleneck or at risk of highly visible errors. Change your thinking from “I’m the decision-maker” to “I’m the agreement and team builder”. Reserve positional decision authority as a fallback, rather than the norm. Both decision and implementation quality will go up.
See below for a practical definition of “Consensus”
Delegation: A high-performance leader is always looking for opportunities to develop the members of their teams. Wouldn’t it be great to be able to trust that your team will make great decisions, using your input and guidance as needed? Make sure everyone understands the situation, conditions of satisfaction, pertinent constraints and requirements. Confirm they have what they need and turn them loose.
When you don’t feel you can delegate, ask yourself what skills and knowledge would your team leaders need for you to feel confident in them? You just identified a team development goal.
Majority Vote: Note where this option falls in the chart. A vote might get you to a decision a little faster than a consensus, but it is a Win/Lose process unless the vote is unanimous (including you) which would, by definition, be a consensus.
The term “consensus” has had a bad rap because of two incorrect assumptions: that consensus means compromise and therefore low quality/group-think decisions, or that consensus is impossible. Both assumptions are wrong when high-performance leaders use collaborative decision-making processes. Here are two useful and practical definitions:
“Consensus”: A decision that all the affected stakeholders agree to actively support.
“Compromise”: You give up something you really want. I give up something I really want. We shake hands and go away angry. (Note that this is like most “value engineering” exercises where we are cutting out value to meet a budget, rather than adding value to delight a customer.)
The essential condition of satisfaction in testing for consensus is the open, public commitment to actively support. Our focus is on quality, commitment, and follow through. Yes, the process involves tradeoffs and deal-making – but in the service of the collective good and the best decision. By engaging stakeholders we get their best ideas, we know where their main concerns and sticking points are. We all understand how the decision affects each participant.
Three things that help move a group to consensus:
- Set a clear time limit by which the decision must be made – a “last responsible moment”.
- Make clear you are working for consensus – a Win/Win agreement everyone will voluntarily implement.
- Establish a clear fallback decision method. E.g.: “If we don’t have consensus on every point by our deadline, let’s finalize consensus on everything we can and I will use your input to decide any outstanding issues”. Often, stakeholders get more creative as the deadline approaches because they don’t want to lose decision-making power.
People help to implement decisions they helped to make. A key tactic in complex situations is to get as many agreements as you can along the way and use them as building blocks to a final agreement. You are building a cultural norm about meaningful engagement.
In closing post #8, if you started this post thinking, “the only thing that matters is that we make the right decision!”, I hope you will now broaden your thinking to include making the right decision – in the right way! Implementation requires the buy-in of those who implement. Those who help create, help implement.
In Post # 9, we will put all the pieces of the first 8 posts together into our final topic, Leading Collaborative Problem Solving. The High-Performance leader must build big agreements out of a series of small agreements. At every point, they must know where they are in the problem-solving process and where they are going. They must have the right tools, processes and skills to know which step is needed next to develop brilliant solutions that get results. Join us!
