What are the benefits and drawbacks of using a participative decision making style with your team?

In my experience, when making decisions that involve multiple factors, such as resources, customer requirements, time-frames, quality and of course safety, it has been very rare indeed that I have not involved my peers or people in my team when making decisions. Being a team leader, supervisor or manager never means that you know everything at all times; a more intelligent view to take is to really understand that more people means more eyes on a problem, more brains on a solution and more hands to make it happen. I have always made it part of my leadership style to be approachable and friendly whenever I can in order to maximise ideas, solutions and then labour to overcome any problem.

The key perspectives to decision making within any team are: 1)Truth 2) Honesty 3) Group Involvement 4) Employee Participation Being able to meet with employees on a personal level while excluding management, allows employees the opportunity of expressing concerns and issues ‘freely’. One will find that there are a vast majority of employees facing issues, unable to voice concerns, due to the probability of reprimand. Obtaining this trust and initiating actions toward resolving matters, are key indexes in establishing a ‘Great Team’.

In my experience, the best times to use a participative decision are when the decision affects the whole team. For instance, talking about a new work schedule, or a new SOP being created.

To look at when to use a participative decision making style, I thought I'd offer examples of when NOT to use this style: Having served as both a soldier and a firefighter, I understand fully that sometimes just doing WHAT you're told to do, HOW you're told to do it and exactly WHEN to do it can be very important. Simply put, when life is in danger, the decision making must be made by those with the best view of a situation, which is not always the person doing the work or being put at risk.

The Participative Decision-Making Model is highly beneficial for international and multinational organizations. It leverages local teams' and stakeholders' expertise to make informed, market-specific decisions, ensuring higher engagement and motivation among team members. Key factors influencing decisions across different countries include: - Work culture - Costs and budget - Permits and legal barriers - Competitor analysis - Market interest While this approach may extend the initial decision-making stages, it leads to more effective and optimal outcomes tailored to diverse markets.

I would encourage leaders to understand that it's not always the person on their team with the most experience that's the best source of information to help with effective decision-making. Often, it's the person that undertook training recently or passed their apprenticeship last week that has the most current, most correct information in their heads! In certain industries that are reliant on academic qualities from people, it's often those that left University not long ago that have been taught all about the latest, most efficient solutions to a wide range of problems. In summary; don't overlook the newbie, they might have more to offer if you are willing to let them!

It can be a double-edged sword, but if decisions are made logically, then explaining to your team about why you made a decision they might disagree with is easy. Alignment with goals or culture is what promotes growth. Not everyone will always agree, but being able to separate the ideas and select the information based on the best benefits for the team is what is essential. At the end of the day, if I’m doing what’s best for my team, then I know I’m doing right by my team.

In my experience, as a leader one should listen to the team’s input in the decision-making process. The leader should evaluate input and make final decisions based on it (if pertinent) or use its own criteria. The key is to explain to the team why decisions were made in such a way.