Decision-Making & Information Flow

Decision-Making

How are decisions made on the team? Is the approach to decision making a consensual one or does the leader make the decision? The goal with a consensus approach is to ensure that all members of the team are comfortable with the decision and feel that they can adequately support it. This process generally works best when all members of the team have an opportunity to express their perspectives and engage in a healthy discussion. The ultimate goal is to reach a decision that reflects the overall sentiment of the team. This approach is most appropriate when the buy-in and support of team members are critical to the success of whatever decision is made.

With a top-down approach, the decision rests with the leader. In some cases, the leader makes the decision based on their own knowledge of the situation. In other cases, the leader asks for advice and counsel from the team and uses this information to make the decision. The solicitation of advice presupposes that the team has relevant knowledge or perspectives that are important for the decision-making process. In situations where that is not the case, a leader may seek information from other sources outside the team, or may simply make a decision based on their own knowledge or experience. Top-down decision making is often best when the speed of a decision is critical and when there is likely to be agreement and buy-in from those affected by the decision. Examples might be a critical competitive threat or other unexpected and time-sensitive challenges. Of course, one possible downside of the top-down approach is a potential lack of full buy-in or commitment from the team—and the potential that the leader’s own blind spots have left out key inputs. 

Information Flow

A second key dimension is a manner in which information flows on the team. Does information flow to a central person, usually the leader, who then disseminates it to everyone else, or do team members figure out whom they need to share and receive information from around each issue they face? 

In a centrally controlled situation, the information available to the team is carefully curated and arranged in a pre-packaged manner. Information may still come from different sources, but it flows to a central entity, often the leader, who organizes and communicates it in a particular way. In some cases, this process ensures that there is control over what information is shared and what information is used to make a decision. In other cases, this approach is appropriate because the key data resides in a central location or is available to only a select group of individuals. In addition, sometimes only the leader has a full 360-degree view of what’s going on in the company and industry, so the leader may be best positioned to evaluate the importance of data traveling within the team. 

In the distributed process, the information does not just flow to a single person, who then shares it with the whole team. Rather, individual members continually adjust their sense of who else needs the information or who else they need information from, and that information flows freely among team members.