Mother, May I...?

At a prior workplace I regularly met with Sasha, a staff member that had additional HR responsibilities.?Or rather, she thought she had, and gave the impression she did... but never really demonstrated it.

Each time I raised a query about personnel issues - holiday, overtime, out-of-hours cover - she'd defer to someone else about it: "I'll need to speak to Lionel LineManager first" or "Let me discuss it with Thomas TeamLeader" or "I'll talk to Davina Director"... but then she'd never get back to me with any results.?

Repeating the query at a later date was usually met with the same deferral delay. Eventually I bypassed her and went to the next link in the chain, who were more than happy to give me an immediate decision, or would note my enquiry then provide an informed response within the next few days.

Eventually (and sadly) Sasha left the company. She was a lovely person, bubbly and popular, but it occurred to me that I hadn't had much dealings with her prior to her departure.?Examining why, I realised:

1. I regarded her as a process blocker, rather than an enabler - as my enquiry clearly wasn't being routed to the right person.
2. I'd begin to see her as a redundant part of the workflow, and subconsciously circumvented her at every opportunity

I wasn't sure why Sasha never made decisions: was she incapable of making a decision herself? Or was it a case that she simply wasn't permitted to make decisions? All I recall is the end effect, and the way I compensated for it.

The latter scenario - something requiring management approval - is one I've encountered in many organisations: a "Mother, may I?" syndrome. Some places have not just one but several different layers of approval... combine that with the low availability of decision-makers and you've got a recipe for bottlenecks and processes slowness which, in turn, retards workflow, impeding progress and reduces organisational productivity - when the very people that should be doing are being paid to sit around impotently, awaiting a decision that's taking a long time in coming.

Those that demand control - then do not control - cost their organisation dearly.

So, what's the solution??Be agile.?Trust people.?Empower them to do the right thing, let them make the decisions themselves - rather than impose further checks in place.

For a more recent example, I've witnessed a contractor ask how it's possible to automatically reject an electronic approval request if a decision isn't forthcoming after 30 days.?The business disliked seeing a large backlog of requests accumulating, so they saw a timed auto-rejection as the solution: this clears the backlog - job done.

But they seemed to be missing the point.?I enquired:

• why are so many sign-offs needed?
• why are those signatories not doing the work of signing off - thus permitting a large backlog to accumulate?
• what kind of behaviour is encouraged when a decision-maker knows an outstanding task magically vanishes if it is ignored for long enough?
• how does it make the requester feel if their request is ignored for weeks... and is then automatically cancelled?

Here's someone that explains it much better than I have: David Marquet - Turn the Ship Around. It's a wonderful investment of 10 minutes, showing how the best results are produced by people that have a vested interest and are empowered to be self-organising.