Decision making at work - Explained

If a choice affects you, you should be the one to make it.?

I tell that to Meher all the time.?

And yet, when it comes to my workspace, I tell my team to either convince or to commit. Funny, no? These double standards. When it comes to making choices or making decisions, very often the primary locus of choice is the individual. We all tend to gravitate to approaches, projects, people that we know we work well with. Throw in an unknown variable, and we try to “optimize the situation.”?

In an organization though, decisions and choices are blatantly for the growth of the company rather than what feels comfortable to you. But as a people leader, you have to think of a way to marry (I'm cringing at this word at the moment) the company’s choices with the employee’s personal decisions or strengths.?

In my career so far, I have seen that decisions at a personal level are either fueled by fear or by hope. Largely. Take a step back and think of your last decision (big/ small) and what made you take that decision. We are not very different in that.?

My friend switched to a new organization at the same salary because she was hopeful that the culture at the new place would be better.?

Another colleague bought an automatic transmission vehicle fearing that he was missing out on the joys of clutch free driving.?

These are rather mundane examples. But decisions and choices are on the surface rather mundane. It’s like the duck in the pond. A calm, white creature - that’s furiously paddling underneath the surface to stay afloat.?

In the larger context, especially at work, decision making isn’t the space where we get to assert our individuality and our special strengths. Decision making is that activity that ensures a feeling of community, harmony and collective growth in organizations. In the Asian set-up, decisions at work are deferred to the choices of those whom we respect and feel have more life experience on us.?

And that is changing now.?

With workplaces becoming remote, with lesser one to one, physical interaction and with people choosing to work like that - acquiescing to corporate decisions is tough. Also, people who were born in 2000, are hitting the workforce now. They are a whole new experience and mood. I say this with a lot of humility and awe. I look at some of them that I’m interviewing and wonder if, at that age, I had even 20% of that kind of faith in myself.??

So how should decision making at work evolve given this revolution that we can’t stop, stall or ignore??

Let’s first look at these three things-?

1. Every employee today wants to be true to themselves. This means they want to work only on those projects that personally interest them. Their self is individualistic and not collective. It is not what my father thinks I should be doing at work. It is simply, I don't want to do that, that and that at work.?
2. The impact of armchair influencers is a real thing. These people who spew wisdom on social media (I’m guilty of the same at times, but absolve myself thinking that I’m still in the game, still a player) do play a role in how people choose and what they choose. The latest that I read somewhere was - normalize switching jobs for better pay. I’m wholeheartedly for it and I also know that pay is only 1/3rd the story. Switching for more money is great. But also switch for career, work-life balance, the geography of your choice. It really isn't as simple.?
3. When I go to a Nando’s, I request the server to get me all the sauces. I want to dip the chicken into each and figure out which one I like. Even if I finally decide on the garlic sauce, I still want to have the option to go back to the medium peri peri one. Decision making today is a little like that. I want to decide and then continue to have the option to revisit that option as long as I’m at the table. Especially because many of us believe today that decision making even at work is a self-defining act.?

Given that, that is your context

How does a people leader get their team to understand that decisions are more than themselves??

Play their strengths?

I believe that no matter the project, the product that’s being worked upon is the team. Personally, I take time to understand what motivates my team members. When will a company's decision agree with their own self-defining decision? It usually goes back to their strengths - what they can do effortlessly and timelessly.?

Paint a picture that makes them think about how a project will enhance their own skillset.?

And that falls flat sometimes. I kept telling a younger colleague of mine that he should get a little more general HR experience, only C&B was limiting his growth - not designation wise but for himself. He was unable to see beyond comp strategies and sort of missed the point that for a company, for its people, compensation is an emotional decision.?

He’s doing well at what he chose. But now when we talk, he tells me that he doesn’t know how to manage conversations around compensation. He talks about numbers and strategy - and that’s not enough for him.?

My point - even if you play to their strengths, sometimes the effort will fall flat.?

Be sincere?

In telling them why a certain thing may or may not work.??

In conveying your constraints, reservations and fears.?

In asking for their insights, inputs and feedback.?

By sincerity I mean, don’t do it because it’s the classy thing to do. Do it because you know you have the emotional bandwidth to talk to them and understand where they are coming from.?

Share who you are influenced by?

Armchair influencers are cool - and you should follow those that resonate with you. So in Rome, do as Romans do.?Share your own ideas, thought processes, books, with them - and also those of the people that you follow.?

That said, give your team the time and space to react and respond. Decisions - both for the community and for the self need guidance. And that happens when you don’t forget that this applies to you too.?