In the past, decision-making solely relied on a few leaders, putting immense pressure on their shoulders and causing anxiety and self-doubt. But times have changed! Embrace team decision-making, a smarter approach that spreads the responsibility and delivers better outcomes for your organization.
Involve team members in decision-making by openly discussing issues and inviting them to share ideas to provide solutions. Promote inclusivity by considering each idea regardless of the person’s status in the company. Be quick in resolving conflicts and consider using AI to enhance the experience.
Read on to find out why some leaders shy away from team decision-making and why your team members’ insights can be invaluable when making critical decisions for the organization. We will also talk about how you can enhance employee engagement and involvement in the decision-making process through open discussions, task delegation, and the use of artificial intelligence.
Should You Involve Team Members in Decision-Making?
You should involve employees in decision-making since they are the most important resources in your company. They have a mix of skills and experiences to bring to the table and hold a wealth of ideas and knowledge waiting to be utilized. Their inclusion will open up new opportunities for the team.
Unfortunately, this abundant internal resource often remains untapped since most leaders mistakenly assume that, due to their position in the company, all crucial tasks are their sole responsibility, especially decision-making. Some leaders also fear that involving their employees might make them lose control of the team.
Consequences of Not Involving Your Team in Decision-Making
This mindset often results in one-sided resolutions, inequitable judgments, and partisan solutions to critical problems. The organization may be at the losing end because of inaccurate assessments, flawed conclusions, and missed opportunities.
Here are some of the most glaring consequences of poor decision-making:
- Reduced employee morale. When your team members feel that your judgments are always clouded, one-sided, or erroneous, they’ll start feeling demotivated and disinclined to engage.
- Decreased productivity. Low employee motivation and engagement lead to decreased productivity. When decision-making isn’t as efficient as it should be, resources may be poorly allocated and utilized as well.
- Poor job satisfaction. When employees feel like they aren’t valued in the organization because their insights and contributions are frequently disregarded, they will start to feel disgruntled and unhappy about their work.
- Higher employee turnover. Naturally, your employees will want to look for greener pastures — a team that will make them feel seen, heard, and valued. The cost of replacing an employee is roughly 33% to twice that employee’s annual salary — additional expenses that can have disastrous effects on a company.
Benefits of Team Decision-Making
Involving team members in the decision-making process is immensely beneficial to the company. Here are some great points to consider:
1. Blindspots Will Be Reduced
Your team is made up of individuals with different personalities, backgrounds, experiences, and skill sets. They also have distinct aspirations, motivations, and personal goals. By bringing all these factors together, you and your team will be able to come up with well-rounded, equitable decisions that will benefit the company as a whole.
2. Less Resistance at Implementation
When your team members are involved in the decision-making process and not blindsided by unexpected directives from leaders or sudden changes in the organization, chances are you will encounter less to no resistance from them when the time comes for these resolutions to be implemented. After all, they were included during discussions, weighing of options, and in the settlement of which route to take.
3. Boosts Employee Morale
When employees’ insights and ideas are undervalued, they are reluctant to speak up and hesitant to share their opinions. They typically get swayed by the majority and simply go with the flow rather than stand up for what they believe are better alternatives.
On the other hand, when employees are encouraged to speak up, you will soon observe an improvement in their engagement with various team concerns and a boost in their productivity. Employees with boosted morale and high job satisfaction translate to a higher employee retention rate.
4. Boosts Team Collaboration
Making decisions as a team improves collaboration and strengthens camaraderie. A survey involving 1,400 diverse individuals showed 86% of the respondents attribute workplace failures to poor communication and collaboration, and 90% of them think that leaders should seek their teams’ involvement before making any final decisions.
This clearly shows how team collaboration and involvement are crucial in a productive team, especially if you, as the leader, would like to fully utilize your team members’ skills, knowledge, and experiences.
5. Empowers Employees To Take Ownership of Their Work
When your team members feel included in critical business aspects, especially in decision-making processes, they start to feel more accountable for their work, even for mistakes and failures. Taking responsibility for their actions and decisions pushes them to always do their best, stop putting the blame on others when things go wrong, and work toward learning from their mistakes so they can come out as better individuals from the experience.
6. Increases Employee Loyalty
When you involve your team members in decision-making, you are essentially affirming their importance and value in the team. Employees then develop a deeper commitment to the team and will work harder in contributing significantly to the attainment of shared goals.
Driven and committed team members will want to stay longer in the organization, resulting in a low turnover rate, seamless workflow, continuity, and better productivity.
7. Leaders Can Focus on Other Tasks
With employees involved in decision-making processes, leaders won’t feel the burden as intensely as they would have if the responsibility rested solely on their shoulders. They could redirect their efforts to other critical tasks, such as drafting new plans of action for upcoming goals or formulating marketing strategies to get ahead of the competition.
How To Involve Team Members in Decision-Making
Involving your team members in the decision-making process is tricky. You have to find the perfect balance because too much involvement may undermine your authority and influence as a leader, while too little may make your efforts too insignificant to create any impact in the organization.
Here are some tips on how to gainfully involve your team members in the decision-making process:
Rather than simply providing them with determined solutions and fixed plans of action for various problems encountered in the workplace, discuss the issues with your team. This is a great way to get their take on various topics, gather suggestions and opinions, weigh alternatives, and come up with the best possible solutions to various dilemmas.
Transparency in decision-making is pivotal in fostering trust, respect, and honesty within your team. By including your team members in this critical aspect of business operations, you’re essentially telling them you see them as valuable allies in the organization, and their contributions are consequential to the achievement of goals and the business’ success.
Ask open-ended questions so the team can be exposed to a wider array of solutions rather than being limited to preconceived conclusions. For instance, say, “How can we improve sales monitoring?” instead of “Do you think we should start using artificial intelligence to monitor our sales?”
The previous statement allows your team members to think of limitless possibilities, whereas, in the second statement, you’re limiting their thoughts on whether or not AI should be used.
This is exactly what happened with Eric, my friend’s colleague from the car industry. My friend shared with me how Eric asked his team’s help in figuring out how to improve their Excel sheet for monitoring sales. The team helped him, but at the end of the day, Eric still felt that they didn’t successfully provide a solution to his problem. So he was stuck with the revised Excel sheet for a few more months until someone suggested using work management tools.
Instead of asking his team to modify the Excel sheet they were currently using, he should have asked them for ideas on how to enhance the sales monitoring process. He would have then opened the doors to better, modernized strategies for keeping track of sales.
2. Promote Inclusivity
Allow every member of the team to have their turn in the spotlight. Overcome biases and avoid making assumptions because these only serve to cloud your judgment and prevent you from considering perspectives different from yours. Instead, cultivate open-mindedness, impartiality, and objectivity.
Encourage your team members to be critical thinkers and to freely contribute to the discussion by sharing their insights, suggestions, and recommendations. Stimulate conversations by inviting team members to offer criticisms and analyses with the intention of coming up with the best possible alternatives to choose from.
Check your ego at the door and temporarily disregard rank in the organization to eliminate preferential treatment and entitlement mentality. Encourage the team to listen to each person’s insights, and avoid interrupting anyone while they’re speaking so they can effectively get their points across. A person’s rank and seniority in the team should not obstruct or taint conversations, and all ideas should be fair game for discussion.
3. Manage Conflicts Constructively
Conflicts are inevitable in healthy, vigorous discussions. Effectively managing a team calls for you to be able to resolve conflicts as constructively as you can. Views on truths can vary significantly among your team members depending on their unique perspectives, and it’s up to you as their leader to break these down and arrive at an impartial and logical resolution.
4. Delegate Tasks
Delegating tasks and roles helps make the team function more efficiently. It helps ensure fewer conflicts, minimal overlapping of responsibilities, and transparency in the division of labor. It is also a great way to utilize your team members’ unique strengths.
When you’re leading a diverse group of people, it’s crucial that you identify their strengths and weaknesses so you know exactly how they can contribute to the team. Maximize their strengths by exposing them to opportunities where they can further enhance these strong suits. You can also help them overcome their weaknesses through coaching, mentoring, and by partnering them with stronger team members.
5. Determine Your Decision-Making Strategy
Don’t forget that, as a leader, you should still be in control of your team. When it comes to involving your team members in decision-making processes, decide on a strategy that you feel would be most advantageous for your team.
Would you like to have the ultimate say when it comes to making final decisions? Are you amenable to putting all alternatives up for votation before making final decisions for the team? Or do you wish for a consensus before deciding on anything as a team?
Your leadership style can be a reliable gauge for how you want to handle decision-making processes within your team. Do you want to be a democratic leader who considers the team’s insights and feedback before making any final decisions? Or do you think being an autocratic leader, who exclusively makes decisions and expects everyone to adhere to the changes, would be more appropriate for your team?
6. Utilize Decision-Making Tools
Explore the possibilities offered by artificial intelligence and machine learning through various decision-making tools. They can help you analyze information, make solid projections, map out your options, estimate costs, identify risks, and predict your chances for failure or success. They can help make decision-making a simpler, faster, highly strategic, and more cost-efficient process for you and your team.
Here are some of the most reliable decision-making tools today:
However, keep in mind that not all businesses are a great fit for decision intelligence tools. Small businesses, in particular, can easily fall prey to the limitations, risks, and negative impact of artificial intelligence.
Take a look at what you need to consider before you even think about taking the AI plunge:
- Investment cost. Decision intelligence tools can be quite costly, and the added expenses can take a toll on a small business’ finances. Ditch the idea if you can’t afford it from the get-go, but you can also look into cost-efficiency if you think AI will be of great advantage for your company.
- Information manipulation. In AI, business data is necessary to address concerns and make valuable recommendations. There is a danger of data manipulation, especially if employees would be tempted to twiddle figures to make certain business aspects appear more favorable than they actually are.
- Integration and rollout challenges. Some employees might have a harder time than others in familiarizing themselves with new technology. This could cause substantial delays in business decision-making processes, especially for budding businesses that need to grab opportunities as they come.
Sancus Leadership is committed to helping leaders acquire and enhance the skills needed for better decision-making. We can help you focus on what truly matters most — enhancing your team’s decision-making skills and expanding their experiences in this crucial aspect of business.
When you’re ready to talk about taking this process to the next level by bringing in your team to this critical aspect of business operations, book a demo with us right away! We’re happy to help you come up with the best decision-making strategies for your team.
Key Takeaways
Decision-making is a crucial aspect of business because it has a direct effect on productivity, revenue, growth, and the success of the company. Involving your team members in this critical process significantly improves the quality of alternatives and resolutions available for your business. It’s a great way to share the responsibility while ensuring the company gets access to the best ideas, concepts, and solutions.
