Collaborating in decisions

Involving other people, as equal partners, in reaching a 'we' decision (as opposed to a 'I' decision).

Decision-making is a large part of anyone's job. You make a decision whenever you have to choose between two or more options and make up your mind what to do. Decisions might be trivial or important, repetitive or novel, expected or unexpected, easy or tortuous.

You can make decisions unilaterally or after a period of consultation or in collaboration with other people. Unilateral 'I' decisions may be convenient for you but they deprive other people of any involvement and therefore of a learning opportunity. Consultative decisions involve other people to the extent that you pick their brains before reaching your decision. This limited involvement is better than nothing but it still excludes people from the actual decision-making.

Collaborative 'we' decisions are undoubtedly preferable from a learning and development point of view because they involve people as equal partners in the decision-making process. This does not mean that all decisions should be collaborative. There is clearly a time and place for both autocratic and consultative decision-making,but if you want to develop people you would err on the side of collaborative decisions.

There are rich pickings to be gained from getting people to collaborate in decisions. Here are some to whet your appetite and wean you off unilateral decisions taken behind closed doors.

People collaborating in decision-making are likely to learn:

• the importance of spending time formulating the decision to be made or problem to be solved and the dangers of rushing headlong into a decision only to find you've solved the wrong problem
  
  
• how tempting it is to assume that there is a single right answer to all problems instead of lots of equally viable solutions
  
  
• how to tolerate the uncertainty of not knowing what the answer is while options are identified and ideas generated
  
  
• the importance of having agreed criteria against which to weigh and evaluate different options
  
  
• the importance of anticipating the consequences of a chosen course of action before implementing it
  
  
• that decision-making requires thought and is dammed hard work
  
  
• that genuine consensus is rare and the perils of assuming that acquiescence is agreement
  
  
• that involvement increases ownership and commitment.

When you look at this list of potential lessons it is surprising that collaborative decision-making isn't more widespread. Who knows, you might even discover that the quality of the decisions is enhanced.