From the course: Critical Thinking and Problem Solving

Important parameters

- One of my biggest mistakes as an absentee owner was not making it clear enough to my team what they were and weren't allowed to make decisions on. I assumed that they knew but the reality was that they ended up stagnating and froze. Thankfully, one member of the team brought it to my attention and we were able to solve the problem before it ended up in ruin. But it made me start paying closer attention to problem-solving. You and your team should always know the parameters of decision-making so things can always stay moving. The first parameter is who was making the decisions? This can be broken up into four general types. The first is decision by the leader, called autocratic decision-making, this makes sense if any of the following features may apply; time is short, you have an inexperienced team, there's a crisis or if there are legal, ethical or other high impact ramifications if the wrong choice is taken. Second is decision-making by the leader with input, called participatory decision-making. This is when you, as the leader, get input but ultimately make the final decision. This makes sense in the following cases; you realize that others may have valuable input or expertise, you need more commitment to the final say and you need people to feel listened to. Understand though, if you don't take the advice, you need to engage them and let them know why. Third; decision by majority vote. This is a good option in the following scenarios; you have the time to take to make a good decision, you're not tied to a specific outcome because know the team mates choose something you didn't want, the team has access to the information they need to make the decision, you need a higher engagement and commitment to the results. Be aware though, that if there's a consistent loser, that loser may start to become disgruntled. Finally; decision by consensus. This is actually closer to majority vote usually, as often, there are at least a few people that just agree with the majority to end the conversation. The same things need to be in place as with majority vote but with the following additions; you really need everyone's full commitment and you have a lot of time. The second parameter you need to consider is the degrees of freedom, you must be clear about the range of possibilities that you or your team can genuinely consider. This was one of the biggest challenges for my team when they got stuck. Now they know that for any decision, it must abide by a monthly budget, an event budget and some other general guidelines. Recently, they were problem solving to overcome a loss of income and looking for solutions, but they knew that I wouldn't allow steep discounts like buy one get one free. With that knowledge, they feel ironically more free now that they know what's out of bounds. You need to make these parameters clear for yourself and for your team, find out which decisions fall into which decision-making category from their perspective of your boss and for your team. Make sure you have a clear understanding with your supervisor what your degrees of freedom are with any decisions and do the same thing with your team. Oddly enough, having these restrictions will give you and your team more freedom and confidence in making decisions by removing uncertainty and improving focus.

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