Equipping Your Team to Make Decisions
| Susan manages a team of six sales executives. She’s very proud of them – they regularly exceed their targets, they work well together, and they deliver exceptional customer service. However, Susan has recently been asked to take on new projects and to work more remotely. She has assured her boss that her team will manage without her direct involvement. But, in reality, she’s worried. She’s noticed how much team members depend on her when making key sales decisions, such as whether to pursue a potential customer or what level of discount to offer. She wonders whether her people will be able to make these kinds of decisions on their own. In this report, we examine why it’s important for managers to delegate decision-making, how to tell if your people are ready to take on the responsibility, and how you can best equip them to “step up to the plate”! The Importance of Delegating Decision Making Choosing to hand over decision-making responsibilities may be an uncomfortable shift for you to make – even when your team is highly experienced and skilled. You might even feel threatened by it if, say, you work in a “blame” culture and you fear the consequences of poor decision-making. Or, you might just doubt people’s ability to make “good calls” and feel unsure about how to coach them. However, allowing your team to make decisions independently can be a positive move, both for you and your team members. Benefits include: Reduced workload: encouraging your team to make decisions will reduce the burden on you, and free up time for you to focus on other tasks or responsibilities. This has the added benefit of smoothing workflow, as you will less likely be a bottleneck if you can let go of some of your workloads. Improved decision making: your role is to inspire your people to do a great job, and you will have done your own job well if their decisions have a positive impact on your organization. You may find that, in some situations, they make better decisions than you would have done. New perspectives: equipping your team to make decisions will likely expose you to new ideas and options that you hadn’t considered before. Team empowerment: studies show that decision-making empowers people and helps them to feel more in control of their jobs. It also increases their confidence, improving their performance day today. Is Your Team Ready to Make Decisions? You need to be confident that your team members are ready for the responsibility before you hand over the reins for decision-making. But how will you know? If your people already contribute ideas, suggestions, and solutions, then you’re off to a great start! And, if you already delegate some decision-making to them, chances are they will welcome the opportunity to take on more responsibility. You might not know how willing or ready your team member is, so ask! Take them to one side and ask, “How do you feel about the prospect of making more decisions as part of your role?” How to Equip Your Team to Make Decisions Your people need three things to make decisions effectively: the right tools, the self-confidence, and the opportunity. 1. Give Them the Right Tools When you have empowered your team members to want to make decisions, you need to ensure that they have the knowledge, skills, and tools to do so. The most important thing that you can do is to set a good example and to give them the chance to watch and learn from you as you make decisions. You’ll most likely be their personal barometer of success, so take the time to explain how you arrive at your decisions. For example, you might explain that your decision-making is influenced by your organization’s values, mission, and vision. You likely also consider relevant policies, procedures, and background information. You can also share your experience of using decision-making tools or models, such as the TDODAR Model or OODA Loops and encourage them to develop a network of experts to call upon for advice. Other practical measures that you can take to ready your team to make decisions include: Providing training. Help your people to identify gaps in their own skills and knowledge, particularly in their Critical Thinking and in risk analysis. Also, give them guidance on how to cope with an unexpected crisis, or when there’s no time to think. Providing information. Your team will make better choices if you give them all the information and knowledge that they need. Encouraging learning. Help your people to take ownership of their learning and training (this has the added benefit of freeing up even more of your time). Assigning authority. Chances are, your position or level of seniority gives you the power to make decisions. If you are delegating some of these decisions to a team member, you’ll need to give them the appropriate authority to do so. Make sure that other stakeholders know that she has that authority. 2. Give Them the Self-Confidence to succeed If your people aren’t accustomed to making decisions, they may doubt their ability to do so. This may also be the case if they made decisions that backfired, or that met with disapproval. As a manager, part of your role is to empower and develop your team members, so that they can perform at their best. One way to do this is to help them to build self-confidence. Our article, Building Confidence in Other People, is packed with tips and techniques for creating self-assured and positive teams. If a team member still lacks the confidence to make decisions independently, help them to understand what triggers their anxiety. You can do this as part of a coaching or mentoring partnership. Consider the possibility that issues around confidence may not be focused on decision-making itself. For example, team members may feel that they have the ability to make decisions, but feel less confident in explaining the rationale behind them. Developing their communication skills could be appropriate here. Make yourself available as people begin taking on their new responsibilities. Act as a safety net as they get used to it, and be available to “sense check” their decisions. But avoid the temptation to make the decision yourself, as that would defeat the object of the exercise! 3. Give Them the Opportunity to Make decisions For your team members to develop their decision-making skills, they will need to practice them. But, before they begin, you need to set clear boundaries and areas of responsibility, so that people understand which decisions are theirs to make. Equally, make it clear what is not in someone’s remit, and when they should defer decision making to someone more senior. Start small, especially if people are still a little unsure of themselves, and set specific goals for them to aim for. For example, give a team member a target of making one significant decision within the next month. Or, if they are low in confidence and experience, ask them to make smaller decisions – such as where to go for the next team-building event – or keep a log of the decisions that she made during a particular week, and how she arrived at them. These tasks will likely encourage them to seek out other opportunities to practice their skills, even if it is only on a very small scale, to begin with. Remember to provide regular feedback as people grow in confidence and experience, to encourage and develop them further. Chances are, your team members already have the ability to make good decisions. The key is recognizing when individuals are ready. Things to look out for include proactively suggesting ideas, and a willingness to get involved in decision making. In order for people to take on decision-making responsibility, they need the confidence, tools, and opportunity to do so. As a manager, these are all things that you can provide, and doing so will improve your team’s performance, and reduce your own workload – a real win-win scenario! -your coach Christian J. Fischer |