In response to Michelle’s comment to yesterday’s post.

Question:

Will you expand upon the idea of planning like a democracy? Democracy implies to me that decisions are up for a vote and majority wins.

I am certainly all for a manager soliciting the best advice from his team, but ultimately the manager must have the authority to decide, as it is the manager who is accountable for the output of the team.

My experience is that teams are OK with the ultimate decision being that of their manager, as long as they know this upfront. Employees advise and recommend, but the manager decides.

Conversely, when a manager says or implies he’s running a democracy and the majority recommends something that the manager ultimately overrules, the team feels betrayed – and rightfully so.

Your thoughts?

Response:

In his book Driving Force, Peter Schutz characterizes the distinction between planning and implementation using analogies to organizational processes of dictatorship and democracy. His distinction is to make the point that most managers reverse the process, making decisions like a dictator and then wondering why the implementation is wrought with democratic slowness.

For implementation to be competitive, it requires the streamline efficiencies analogous to those found in a dictatorship. In implementation, there is seldom time for discussion, divergent opinions or tactful instruction.

To implement in this way, however, requires the planning process to incorporate processes analogous to those found in democracies. Planning must include the participation of those stakeholders in discussion, alternatives, contingencies, related issues, including the impact on all parties.

Your question centers around the specific accountabilities in the process of decision making. You are correct, the manager must make and be held accountable for the decision. And in fact, team members who participated in the process do not have to agree with the decision; they only have to agree to support the implementation of the decision made by the manager. It is their participation that is critical. People will support a world they help to create.

Elliott Jaques (Requisite Organization) goes so far as to rename the weekly team meeting to the weekly manager’s meeting to clarify the accountability.