Got a bottleneck at work? These techniques can help

“I’m not doing anything on the project until I hear from my boss.”

Have you ever been in that situation? Atlassian Work Futurist Dominic Price is sharing new research on transparent decision making, including the dreaded bottleneck. Organisations tend to have a mentality that decisions go up to the top, and the most senior person decides.

“I’ve got a couple of problems with that,” Price tells LinkedIn. “The smallest part of the bottle is the top, right? That’s where we’ve got the bottleneck.

"In most organisations, you’re going to the most time-poor person for a decision. It’s crazy. You ping it to them, and then you sit there. You wait. You say, ‘I can’t do anything’."

And while you're waiting, Price says you already know the decision that you would make.

"This is the irony — often people push up a decision that they are more equipped to make. You’re closer to the customer, you’ve got better data, you’ve done this, you’re feeling the pain of it, you should be the one to drive this change.”

Instead of sending decisions up to the boss, Price has two techniques:

1.????Turn a big decision into smaller questions

Price says, “People build decisions up to the point that they’re so big that they have to go up to the boss. You know, ‘It’s above my pay grade.’ Break it down to the smallest possible manageable decision.”

He says this technique is something of a “subtle art” but it reduces the chance of negative recourse from making a decision without a manager’s approval.

2.????Consult with someone other than the boss

“Work out who the expert is and also who is impacted the most because those stakeholders are infinitely more important than a manager,” he says.

The two people most important to any project are the subject expert, and the people most directly affected.

"Those people’s voices count for a lot more than everyone else,” he says.

Did you find this advice helpful? Do you have your own techniques for avoiding a bottleneck? Share your experiences and tips in the comments below.

Change is constant —?especially when you're in the middle of a job search. The ultimate goal is to harness change for your benefit, but a crucial step toward that is to tolerate change.?This LinkedIn Learning course?will give you the foundation needed to cope with change. You can watch it below or?by clicking here.

We'll share a free LinkedIn Learning course each fortnight. Be sure to subscribe.

Have you had a formative experience donating your time? As Australia celebrates National Volunteer Week (May 15-21), professionals are taking to LinkedIn to share their experiences as a volunteer, the reasons they chose the organisations they volunteer for, and the benefits to their career.

Ren Shike says, "I’ve developed many skills through leading team Queensland, planning and running events and through workshops."

What's the best career advice you've ever received? Experts are weighing in on LinkedIn, including Jahin Tanvir who says he learned how to "fail forward".

"The idea of failure used to be frightening. How could you possibly be liked if you are prone to error? But now, it's a concept that I advocate for with a burning passion," Tanvir says.