The best process for effective group decisions

13 Aug 2018 Tags: Soft skills

First post in a series on group decision-making.

The series:

1. Introduction. Decision rules (this post).
2. Overview of decision crystallization.
3. The decision mosaic and the determinative element.
4. Crystallizing a decision at the end of a round.
5. Learning to crystallize decisions.
6. Reviewing and refining the decision as a whole.
7. A culture of effective meetings.

Making effective group decisions

John E. Tropman’s Making Meetings Work: Achieving High Quality Group Decisions is the single most important book I’ve read for developing the skills of effective organizational work. (His more recent book, Effective Meetings: Improving Group Decision Making, which I haven’t read, appears to cover much the same territory.)

To benefit from Making Meetings Work, you have to apply sustained effort. Although simply reading through it once and then shelving it might nudge you towards slightly more effective meeting habits, the big gains accrue from practice.

Much of the book is concerned with practical details of setting agendas (don’t allow last-minute additions, include time for discussing long-term issues, …), keeping to agendas (do what you planned, no more and no less), recording minutes (record points made but not the person who made them), and similar skills. Become proficient in these skills and people will want to attend your meetings because the meetings will be reliably efficient and productive.

But for me the genius of Tropman’s ideas, and the heart of the book, is Chapters 10 and 11 on how to lead a group to make effective decisions. Chapters 1–9 describe how to prepare the group for a decision; the meeting is the mechanism for actually making the decision. Chapters 10 and 11 lay out the process for that decision to be effective: supported by all parties necessary for its success, responsive to outside constraints, matched to the culture of the organization, and situated within the history of previous agreements. If one or more groups had to postpone or sacrifice a goal important to them, they are confident that their concerns are valued and will be addressed in future.

Decision rules: Evaluating your options

Chapter 10 describes the criteria participant use to assess support for a decision. Tropman calls such criteria decision rules and describes five in wide use:

1. Extensive: Choose the option with the most votes, with every vote weighted equally.
2. Intensive: Weight votes by intensity of feeling, for or against.
3. Expertise: Rule options in or out based upon expert advice, as might be provided by legal, technical, or accounting professionals
4. Involvement: Choose the option preferred by those responsible for implementing the decision.
5. Power: Select the choice favoured by the management, funders, the government, competition judges, or other arbiters.

This classification is not absolute. Some groups may use variations or even favour rules distinct from these. For example, an organization might have a “cultural fit” rule that favours options conforming to “our way of doing things”, such as favouring decentralized decisions. Overall however, Tropman’s five rules are used by groups from a very wide range of contexts.

The rules may provide conflicting guidance, recommending different choices due to the different factors they emphasize. An effective decision balances these emphases, addressing the concerns of every group and setting the foundation for successful collaboration.

Making decision rules explicit improves decisions

The decision rules underly all decisions but are often only tacit. Group members are aware of the differing intensities of feeling amongst their members, differing degrees of involvement, and the like. However, if the rules are not explicitly articulated, such issues will be folded into proposals, shaping what is on offer. A group with unaddressed concerns will only be tepidly enthusiastic for or even undercut implementation of the final decision. We want active collaboration, not mere acquiescence, and that only results when people believe their concerns have been heard and accounted for.

In North America, the extensive decision rule—majority vote, all participants equal—has acquired such cultural prominence that at first it may be hard to imagine alternatives. But forcing all decisions according to this rule, to say nothing of the far more restrictive rule of “unanimous consent”, distorts the process. Explicitly articulating the choices and tradeoffs in terms of distinct rules, highlighting their potential conflicts, allows the group to balance the conflicting goals in a decision that addresses everyone’s concerns.

Implement decision rules within a larger context

Decision rules are actually implemented as part of a larger process. Tropman describes this process in his Chapter 11, where he recommends a process for leading a group to a high-quality decision. This process is subtle and requires practice. I will summarize that process in the next post.

As a prerequisite, you need experience recognizing the rules in action. The next several meetings that you attend, observe the basis of the decisions made. Can you locate claims and concerns as expressions of the underlying rules? Are the meeting participants aware that there are potentially conflicting criteria or do they force-fit everything into a majority-vote, extensive rule?

While doing this exercise, be alert to distinguishing decision rules from a more basic level of response, values. Whereas decision rules are tied to specific actions, values are deep commitments underlying such choices and assigning them an ethical or moral dimension. Values include such principles as, “Treat people fairly” or “the client comes first”. Tropman discusses values in a separate chapter. Values are important and must be considered when leading a group to a decision but they represent a distinct level from the more applied one of decision rules.

In the next post, I will introduce the process by which you can lead a group to consensus around a good choice.