Distributed Decision Making
We have written much about the flattened org chart that the younger generations subscribe. The extremely veridical, military-like chain-of-command days are waning in the modern work world. The decision-making distribution of authority is having a tremendous impact on slow-to-react companies.
I encountered this shift years ago working for a company that was headed up by older managers. My group made a presentation to management to streamline the complex business model we were running. Instead of a near-impossible vertical structure, we recommended distributing the decision process to the different business groups. The approach, which we thought made the most sense in terms of efficiency, was to have managers individually guide each unit. There would be one over-arching manager to maintain consistency throughout the distributed units.
The plan was summarily dismissed.
The older managers simply refused to permit low level command-and-control decisions to be made without their micro-management. Their plan, which was followed, was to try to retain control through a single hierarchy that made even the most insignificant decisions laborious. This small company should have been nimble and aggressive in the market place. Instead they moved like an ocean liner and eventually went out of business.
This long setup leads to a CareerJournal.com article titled How Understanding the ‘Why’ Behind Bosses’ Decisions Matters. From the article:
In a study last year, Mr. Clampitt found that employees are more likely to support decisions when they are told about the rationale. The study surveyed roughly 300 managers and employees at more than 100 U.S. employers, asking what they knew of decisions and how supportive they were of them. Mr. Clampitt says employees of companies that explained decisions more fully were more than twice as likely to support those decisions as workers who got less information.
I can personally relate to those findings. There is nothing worse than mushroom management.
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Posted By Derrick Moe | Communication, Sales Management, Team Management | |
Two of your posts today deal with a topic dear to my heart (and should be important to all managers): helping people deal with change. Motivating sales people and re-organizing a company share a common challenge - you want people to try something new, get out of their comfort zone, extend their performance. These people should “get it”, right? And just get on board and support the company. And yet, there are many more stories about why this hasn’t worked than about miraculous successes.
My point? All change in behavior requires people to leave what they know and venture into the unknown. Change, even small change, is scary, and people naturally resist, often subconsciously sabotaging the effort.
Good managers (be they sales managers, the ‘old guard’ command and control freaks or the new flat-liners) help their people connect with the vision of ‘what will life be like after this change?’ They understand the WIFM principle - what’s in it for me? If I have an emotional sense that the sales goal, new organization or individual perfromance target is something that will benefit me, fits my values and ALSO serves the company, I will be much more likely to dive into the murk that accompanies change.
If I don’t see the benefit, can’t relate to management’s view or think it will expose me in some way, my natural tendency will be to resist, maintain status quo, hunker down.
Taking the time and making the effort to help people understand the WHY (in terms that are meaingful to them, not just in directive statements)connects them personally to the goal, provides a groundwork of reason and makes the prospect of uncertainty less frightening.