Thinking differently and collectively about decision making

I’m sure we’ve all been part of a "groupthink" discussion where the course of action or the decision taken has let us feeling uncomfortable, yet we would like to go with the flow for a number of reasons. The result? We come out of those meetings feeling dissatisfied or not quite aligned, we feel disengaged and we are unable to commit fully to the decision being taken. What we often don’t realise is that we are also part of the problem because there was something about the meeting that stopped us from expressing what we really wanted.

This form of groupthink is called the Abilene Paradox, a term coined by Professor Jerry B. Harvey of the George Washington University, which is about the example of a family making a trip that no one wanted to go on. The paradox is more about managing agreement, instead of conflict, which then leads to decisions that might not be the best for the organisation or the team.

This is a common dilemma facing leaders when getting closure on decisions. When is a "yes" actually a "yes", when it could be a "yes, but", "no, but" or even a "no". What is it that stops people from expressing what they really think? How can people be encouraged to say what they really think without fear of reprisal?

Speaking to some of my peers, there were some valuable insights. There is probably no one right answer. Decisions are made based on a combination of evidence and judgement. As such, there are no "good decisions" at the outset. Only time will tell if a decision was good or not. What we can aspire for are "well-informed decisions". If that is clarified at the very beginning, colleagues are likely to feel more open and confident in expressing views that might not be the most popular in the room.

It is a spectrum. In one of the training sessions I attended, we were taken through a simple tool called "gradients of agreement", where, for every action or decision, each participant had to rate a decision on a grade of one to six, with one being absolutely happy with it and six when you are absolutely opposed to it. The scores in between allow a range of opinions in support of or against the action or decision. This approach steps away from the often used "yes/no" binary approach to decision-making. In addition to the scoring, members are also asked to explain their scores, which opens up a conversation and makes the discussion more well informed.

Think things over and do not decide in haste. Unless there is a crisis brewing, there is no need to take a quick decision if there is some reluctance or uncertainty among the group. Decisions taken in haste on important matters are the ones that might come back to haunt us. Effective leaders are known to suspend the need for a decision so that colleagues can go back to the drawing board, check their assumptions, get better information and, more importantly, create some spaces to continue the conversations. Where there is no pressing imperative to take a decision in terms of timeframe, it often leads to decisions being of much better quality and thus engaging colleagues more in taking these forward.

It is about inclusion, not consensus. Decisions are about choices and hence, in most cases, it is highly unlikely that there would be a perfect consensus on some critical decisions. Based on what I have experienced and heard, effective decisions are those that value inclusion over consensus. Inclusion enables people with different perspectives to come up with insights that lead to better-informed decisions. Consensus can sometimes drive us down a path where we cannot make hard choices. I remember our strategy consultant telling us: "If you come up with a strategy that everyone is absolutely happy about, there is a problem because you might not have made tough choices."

We know from experience that, if the decision-making process is flawed, the decisions that are then taken can have some terrible consequences. So it is important to focus as much, if not more, on the process of decision-making as we do on the quality of decisions or, indeed, the speed with which decisions are taken.

(Originally published in the Third Sector, October 2018) 

Changing Lives

The earth was damp. The market was busy, The farms were buzzing with activity. The rains that year had been good, and everyone seemed to have a spring in their feet, a renewed purpose in their lives. Making my way to the little town of Netrang in the south Gujarat district of Bharuch in India, there was a sense of hope in the air. An area dominated by the 'adivasis' or 'scheduled tribes' (as they are referred to in the Indian Constitution - the indigenous people), they lived on the margins, their lives steeped in poverty, yet a community that was so full of life and resilience. 

It was September 1985. I was actually going to meet my close friend Shankar. It was almost 5 months since I had seen him. I was bored in my job in Mumbai. And it was time to head off and have some fun and just 'chill'. 

Shankar greeted me with his characteristic charming smile. He was (and is) always someone who is full of excitement and enthusiasm - but that day he was particularly excited. I thought it was because I had arrived, and while that may well have contributed to that, he was excited to check the progress of the social forestry and minor irrigation projects that his organisation had been implementing, with which he had been closely associated. And with good rains, there was hope of an early success. 

"It was not easy, initially, as people had to trust us. And winning their trust was always going to be difficult as we are city bred outsiders and very young too", he explained. He was only 22 and his team leader was just a year or two older. Most of the dozen odd team members were in their early to mid twenties. But I had not come to see the projects - I had come to see him and spend time with him. But to my chagrin, he said, "Let us go to the villages and I will show you what we have been doing". 

Succumbing partly to his enthusiasm, I hopped on to his motorbike, and set out to see 'the work'. He kept talking about how they had been working with the local communities, pointing excitedly to the various villages they worked in as we passed them. 

After an hour or so, we came to a village, to be greeted very warmly by the local community. They were very pleased with the rains. They were growing trees to arrest the decline of green cover. The saplings were doing very well and looked healthy. They had a local management team in place to keep an eye on the plantation, keep the accounts and generally get the community engaged. They had a long term plan. After 10 years or so, some of these trees could be sold, but in the interim, there would be fodder, some firewood and seeds available. Some employment had also been generated and a community so short of cash had some money going around. They could now dream of a better future for their children !

The story in the next village was not so different. Here, there was a minor irrigation project which was to arrest the flow of water through a simple construction, which would then enable the local farmers to irrigate their crops for the first time and get a better return.

As a 22-year old myself, I watched in fascination at what I was witnessing. Of course I could see what the trees and the irrigation could do, but I had learnt some key lessons from Shankar without he probably having realised it. These were :

* The power of trust - When there is trust, you can move mountains. There is a book by Stephen Covey on 'The Speed of Trust' which I read many years later. That is so true. As an outsider and as a  youngster, Shankar had built trust with the local communities in a matter of just 6 months. It had to come from his personal style and engagement, and a genuine empathy

* Enthusiasm is infectious - It is so easy to identify challenges, less so, to identify opportunities. Here was a great example of how enthusiasm based on belief in what would work was being translated to generate enthusiasm across different stakeholder. As a naturally enthusiastic person, Shankar could demonstrate that very effectively

In all this though, there was a much deeper lesson, which probably even Shankar did not realise at that time - that we all have the power to change something, and that is, Change Lives ! That realisation has stayed with me always and is so core to my self belief.