-The following is an article from "Living Your Leadership Legacy."
A newsletter published by Competitive Solutions, Inc.

Efficient and effective decision-making is a significant objective for business focused work teams. Many teams struggle with efficient decision-making because they lack a pre-determined method to evaluate and eliminate potential options and drive discussion to outcomes. Time is a valuable resource in every organization and teams can benefit from a defined decision-making process because such a process can minimize ineffective debate and produce outcomes in time sensitive environments. All teams should develop and document a decision-making process in advance to ensure that team input is maximized and decisions are driven by process not personality.

There are several necessary components to an effective decision-making process and all team members should be involved with defining the team process. As with other basic elements of an effective team, a decision-making process requires that team members modify non-negotiable requirements to suit team needs. Every team within an organization should have a unique decision-making process so in effect, team decision-making processes will be different in content while similar in there strategic intent.

To begin the development of an effective decision-making process, teams should answer the following questions:
• What is our preferred method for decision-making?
(Consensus, Democratic, Unanimous)
• How many team members must be present to take a vote? What is our quorum?
• When voting, what constitutes a majority?
• What is the vote is split 50/50 or not a majority?
• Can team members submit absentee votes? When?
• Can team members abstain? When?
• When should decisions not be made?
• How should team members show support for team based decisions?

Team members should discuss and decide on a mutually acceptable answer to these questions and document them as the team decision-making process. This process should be stored in the team process handbook and/or a centrally located place accessible to all team members. Some teams create an electronic file that holds all team processes. This file is then accessed during team meetings and is used by the team as a guide.

It is ultimately up to the team to insure that team processes add value to their operations. A team must be diligent about using and updating their processes. Progressive organizations realize the need for team definition and structure. Without structure, personality may drive decisions and full team participation may be limited. A document a decision-making process will assist teams in making effective and efficient decisions.

The following exercise illustrates the effectiveness of a defined decision-making process.

• Preparation: this should be completed the day before running this exercise.
– Determine how many people will be participating. Equally divide participants into 3-4 groups.
– Purchase one inexpensive trinket (maximum one dollar each) times the number of people per group plus one.
– For example: Three groups with four people. Purchase five different types of gifts and three of each type. Each group will have five different trinkets.
– Wrap each group’s trinkets in flip chart paper or newspaper.

• Methodology: divide participants into the pre-determined groups.
– Provide a flip chart and markers to each group.
– Place the wrapped package in the middle of the group instructing participants not to touch the package.
– Provide the following instructions to the class: Each group has a package that contains one more item than there are people in their group. Each group has 10 minutes to discuss and decide on a process to distribute the contents of the package. The group must write their process on the flip chart. Everyone in the group must agree to the process. After the process has been developed and agreed to, the group must follow the process they have created exactly as it was written.
– Observe each group as they discuss and develop their process.

• De-brief: discuss the following questions with the class.
– "How did your process work?"
– "Was it effective and efficient?"
– "Can your process be used again in the future?"
– "Did this process help eliminate debate and conflict about distribution of the package?"
– "How else did the process help the group?"
– "Can your team benefit from a pre-determined decision-making process?" "Why/why not?"

Competitive Solutions, Inc.(CSI) is a leadership training and consulting company that specializes in helping organizations improve communication, develop meaningful business scorecards, create accountability at all levels and set behavioral expectations using a business alignment system called Process Based Leadership.®