We decided this three meetings ago. Why are we discussing it again?
Decisions don't close
A choice gets discussed, seems settled, and comes back. Nobody named who decides, or the meeting took the place of the decision. The work waits while the same question keeps coming back.
- Meetings end without a named decision and a named owner.
- The same topic comes back week after week.
- People ask, "Who actually makes this call?"
Who: the person who runs the main meeting for this workflow. Look at: the last five decisions. For each, write down who decided, when, and what would reopen it. Count: how many have been reopened or made twice. You're probably looking at this pattern if you can't name a decider for most of them, or several reopened. Probably not if decisions close and hold, but nothing happens afterward. If not, compare it with the Change Barriers entries No Owner and Politics.
The plan keeps going after the evidence turned. That one is a decision that should be reopened and isn't. This one is a decision that keeps reopening when it shouldn't.
Name one decider, and have leadership say in front of everyone that they will stand behind that person's calls.
For one role, name two edges. The biggest call they can make alone, and the line where they escalate.
Ask two questions. Who disagrees, and why, say it now. Then, can you fully support this even though you disagree.
The Decider experiment helps choose how to decide in the first place.
Organizations often let talk stand in for action (Pfeffer and Sutton, 2000). Established pattern. Counting how long decisions take to close and how often they reopen is our reasoning. It is rarely measured.