Decide and Commit

There's nothing quite like the corporate world to empower a lack of commitment to decisions, it seems. People love to get consensus. Boy oh boy. If consensus gathering were an olympic sport.

I feel that at least part of the confusion is that several decisions - especially as you move up in strategic importance - require input from other teams. But input isn't the same as getting everyone to agree. Consensus is a spreading out of a decision whereas input just allows a person to make a more informed decision.

One of these takes far too much time and effort and more often than not, is just being used as an "ass covering" tool.

Decide - Everything Works Better That Way

People are afraid of making mistakes, but if you don't take an action, nothing gets done. It's amazing how little can get done if you seek nonstop consensus. Heck, you can build entire processes around it.

Decide. Take an action. Commit to moving that decision forward.

So few of our decisions will change our lives or work forever. A lot of times, the decisions we put off aren't really worth the delay.

When you commit to something, it doesn't mean you have to do it forever. Nothing is forever. (I'm Buddhist, so not even death, in my POV.) But especially not at work. You can make moves based on input and then see if they turn out. If they don't, then make a different decision.

In fact, maybe there's a straightforward fork in the road.

Here's Your Tree on When to Move Faster

Ask these questions before eating too much time on finding consensus and eating up oh-so-much time:

• If I take this action, is it easy to roll it back or make a subsequent choice?
• Do I have (do I NEED) input from other teams that might be impacted?
• Can I lay out a decision and present it to someone just to double-check?

Maybe after you've got answers to these three questions it will become easier to understand when you might need more help and more people's points of view. But if you can answer yes, yes, and yes, then just make the decision.

A strong culture promotes leadership at all levels. A high trust environment thrives on people building up their own "decision making muscles" so that they don't weigh down the operating processes with meetings and meetings and meetings. More decisions lead to actual work being done.

How novel.

Chris...