Editorial
Welcome to Courage Coach, where expert columnist Karin Hurt answers readers' tough leadership challenges with practical tools and techniques you can use right away. Have a question for her? Drop her a line!
Dear Courage Coach,
I have a good team but it’s full of over-thinkers and under-doers. We have great ideas and we love to talk about them. I know you write about people who are afraid to speak up or who fear conflict — that’s not us. People speak up (and up and up). Others listen intently and respond with regard, and there we go again. More talk. No decisions.
I think everyone wants to just get it right. But we go so slow, we miss opportunities to make the contribution we should.
How can I help them to stop thinking (and talking) so much and start doing? How do I get them to align more quickly on decisions?
Signed,
Let’s Do This
Dear LDT,
Lots of good news here. You have a team who cares and feels safe to debate. That’s a lot of good to work with. Let’s give you some tools to help them make decisions more quickly, and move from talk to execution.
7 Ways to Move Your Team from Decision to Action
1. Clarify Who Owns the Decision (Ideally, the person closest to the decision)
One of the biggest reasons conversations never end is it’s unclear who owns the decision. Keep things moving by making it clear who will make the call. It could be you’re going for consensus or a vote. Other times it’s fine for one person to make the call. Just be clear up front.
When people don’t know who’s deciding, that’s an invitation for ongoing debate.
Ideally, this is the person or people closest to the decision. You can say, “Let’s talk about this for an hour so we get all the important views into the room and then ______ will make the call."
It might be you. It might be someone else. The point is to let people know up front who will move this conversation forward.
2. Provide Insight and Context for Decisions
When you begin a discussion, empower your team by giving them the information that’s relevant to the decision.
If there are specific success criteria, boundaries to observe or regulatory issues, raise them at the beginning of the conversation so people don’t waste time “discovering” them for themselves. Share what a successful outcome will do so everyone knows what they’re looking for.
If your team regularly discusses solutions that don’t work, they probably don’t understand the context well enough. Help them by taking the time to make sure they have the information they need to make relevant, strategic decisions.
Related Article: Courage Coach: 7 Ways to Help Your Boss Make a Decision
3. Call out the Patterns
Want to shorten your meetings, energize your team, make decisions and move to action faster?
One way to get there is to pay attention to when you repeat yourselves.
If it’s the third time someone (including you) has shared the same anecdote or concern, acknowledge it. You might say, “We are all repeating ourselves now. Sounds like it’s time to summarize and move on. Does anyone have something to add that we haven’t discussed yet?”
People repeat themselves when they don’t feel heard, so ensure the point is made, recorded and acknowledged. You might check for understanding among participants to ensure everyone understands relevant information.
For example, “Laura, that’s the third time you’ve mentioned how the last change caused major shipping delays. I want to ensure everyone’s got that and make sure we’re not rehashing so we can get all the perspectives in the conversation. Joe, can you summarize what you hear Laura saying and let’s make sure it’s in the notes.”
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4. Pivot to Closure
What else does the team need to know before moving on? Sometimes just asking this question will help everyone realize that there isn’t anything to add. It’s time to decide.
Other times, this question will provide clarity. “Oh, we really need to know a realistic IT implementation time and if there is any other way we might get that part done.” If that’s critical, you can make gaining that information a key next step.
Related Article: Who Makes the Decision?
5. Identify the Next Specific Action to Take
Help your team do more by moving from ideas and intention to activity by getting specific and detailed about next steps. Avoid corporate jargon. There’s no “run it up the flagpole” or “stakeholdering” or “we’ll talk offline.” Those are vague intentions.
Be specific. If the next step is for Juan to discuss two specific regulatory issues with Anastasia from legal, say so. Everyone should be able to state what will happen next.
6. Identify Who Owns the Next Step
One reliable way to move from great discussions and intentions to practical action is for one person to have responsibility for following through. Several people might participate in the activity, event or project, but one person is responsible for ensuring it happens. This avoids the “when everyone’s responsible, no one is” conflict.
Related Article: With Decision Making, You Have to Go Slow to Go Fast
7. Schedule the Finish
How will you and your team know the next steps have happened and are ready for their response? Schedule the finish by setting a specific time on the calendar to go over what was done and what is next with everyone involved in the handoff. This can be a five or 10-minute meeting. Scheduling the finish ensures people do more, follow through with their responsibilities and provides an opportunity to reset for the next steps.
You can help your team avoid endless discussions, analysis paralysis and chokepoints by clarifying who owns the decision, ensuring they have the necessary information and moving conversations to action and ownership.
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