Decision Velocity: The Key to Strong Organizations
Organizations are groups of people making decisions together. That’s why it’s always been a little surprising to me how little attention is paid to the way those decisions are made.
My philosophy on decision-making is pretty simple: winning organizations are the ones who make the most decisions in a given direction. In other words, velocity.
Leadership's core task is to nurture a culture and craft systems that bolster the frequency of directionally right choices. This principle, decision velocity, is the backbone of any high-functioning organization.
Rectifying Misteps
In case it is not obvious, this de-prioritizes prolonged pondering and analysis paralysis. Naturally, quick decisions bring some errors. However, great organizations establish quick-response mechanisms that rectify missteps promptly. Here’s how to do it.
Start with Feedback
Decisions at high-performing organizations happen in loops. For example, one potent strategy for embedding swift, evolutionary decision-making within an organization is the OODA loop, a concept introduced by military strategist John Boyd. OODA, an acronym for Observe, Orient, Decide, Act, describes a continuous process of absorbing new information, understanding it, making decisions, and taking action. The aim is to navigate these loops faster than your rivals, effectively outpacing their decision-making process.
In any decision loop, quick and candid feedback proves crucial. Each project, meeting, and significant decision should culminate in a reflective session to distill learned lessons, both good and bad. Regardless of the task's simplicity, aim to pinpoint at least one improvement ("delta") for future endeavors and one success ("plus") to replicate. Then share these learnings across the organization. Systematically gathering and disseminating these insights fosters a quick-learning, evolutionarily agile enterprise.
Sprints
Executing initiatives efficiently often involves structuring work into sprints, a technique that significantly shortens cycle times. A sprint is a set, brief period (usually 1-6 weeks) during which a team aims to deliver specific outcomes or targets. By confining work to these limited periods, you narrow the scope of planning, curb scope creep, and establish regular checkpoints for delivering value to customers. Sprints excel in creating close feedback loops between product concepts, functional code, and customer engagement, allowing development to proceed swiftly and based on empirical evidence.
Sprints should never move their date goals - however, they can adjust the scope of work if it is too much or too little. One common management mistake is to see a team in sprint that will miss its deadline, and immediately throw people at the problem. But, as Brooks' Law suggests, adding more people to speed things up actually slows things down. Newcomers disrupt established workflows and communication channels, requiring time to assimilate. Thus, the real answer to overcoming delays lies not in merely increasing people power but in addressing the systemic issues causing the delays or scope errors.
MVPs
The quest for perfection is the arch-enemy of quick decision-making, typically showing up as hesitation to launch anything short of flawless. To counter this, cultivate a culture that values rapid learning above faultless execution. Releasing workable product versions, despite missing numerous features, provides far more valuable feedback than endless refinements in a vacuum. Embracing a lean, iterative approach with "minimum viable products" that evolve swiftly is crucial for accelerating decision loops.
Management is Responsibility, Not Control
Some leaders mistakenly believe that tightening their grip through command-and-control tactics can quicken organizational pace. However, this perceived "illusion of control" falls short. True acceleration in decision-making emerges from constructing an environment and incentives that allow autonomous, empowered teams to thrive. In other words, leadership should retain responsibility but push decision-making as low down the chain of command as it can go.
Leaders entrenched in conventional management beliefs often lean towards a "leader-follower" or command-and-control approach. They assume organizational speed and agility stem from meticulous upfront planning, assigning specific tasks, and monitoring progress against detailed timelines and charts. Despite the appeal of this "illusion of control," it seldom delivers the best outcomes, especially in dynamic sectors that rely on knowledge work. The core issue with the leader-follower paradigm is its view of individuals as mere cogs in a machine, blindly executing a set plan, rather than as intelligent agents within a complex, adaptable network. In the era of industrial work, where tasks were straightforward and repetitive, this top-down method might have sufficed. However, in our current knowledge-driven economy, where inventive problem-solving and swift adaptability are paramount, such a rigid structure only hampers the agility and innovation essential for success.
Moreover, the leader-follower model fosters fragile organizations, heavily reliant on a few key individuals. It creates an environment where employees, accustomed to awaiting directions for every decision, are left incapacitated in the absence of their leaders. This dependency breeds a culture of learned helplessness, with team members feeling incapable of acting without explicit instructions. In a world that demands quick action, this passivity, this adherence to "doing as told," inevitably leads to stagnation and decline.
Linking organizational progress too closely to the decisions of leaders inherently limits a company's decision-making speed to the finite bandwidth of those leaders. No single leader, regardless of their intellect or efficiency, can match the collective capacity of an entire organization. By insisting on direct control, significant potential for faster decision-making is overlooked.
In the face of challenges or failures, leaders inclined towards command and control frequently succumb to fundamental attribution error, blaming individuals rather than recognizing the role of situational constraints or process flaws. This fosters a culture of blame and risk avoidance, where employees prioritize self-preservation over collaborative problem-solving.
One of the most damaging outcomes of the control illusion is its stifling effect on intrinsic motivation, creativity, and a sense of empowerment. Knowledge workers seek autonomy, the opportunity to master their craft, and a purpose that transcends mere task execution. True innovation emerges when individuals venture beyond the confines of explicit permissions, embracing the freedom to experiment within the system's margins. Centralized control efforts often quash this vital drive.
Leader-Leader
The solution to the command-and-control dilemma is not to remove leadership but to transform its nature towards a "leader-leader" model. This approach involves leaders acting as enablers rather than directors, providing strategic direction, and setting boundaries while leaving execution specifics to empowered teams. It means creating an environment where individuals take ownership of challenges without being micromanaged. Acknowledging the illusion of control marks the beginning of a leader's transition toward fostering genuine decision-making speed.
Autonomy - The Foundation for Team Decision Velocity
In the realm of knowledge work, centralizing every decision is a path to stagnation. Instead, the principal role of leaders is to empower autonomous teams. They do this by defining the mission's context and boundaries, supplying the necessary tools and resources, and guiding teams toward realizing their maximum potential.
Leaders should provide teams clear grasp of the overarching mission and strategic goals while abstaining from dictating the specifics of execution. Teams are informed of their objectives but are granted the autonomy to determine the most effective methods of achieving them, given the constraints of time and resources. This decentralization of decision-making empowers more individuals to tackle complex challenges and broadens the spectrum of potential solutions.
To make this work, teams should be small. Teams of 5-9 people seem to be the most effective.
Autonomy also necessitates that teams have complete ownership over their domain, enabling them to deliver value directly to customers without undue external dependencies or bureaucratic hurdles. Dependencies and mandatory approvals from outside the team slow down decision-making.
Ideally, teams are cross-functional and equipped with a diverse array of skills required to ideate, design, execute, and deliver their solutions end-to-end. This self-sufficiency is key to maintaining high decision velocity and fostering a culture of innovation and continuous improvement.
Achieving true autonomy transcends mere talk; it must be embodied in the tangible operations of a team. Teams ought to have the liberty to self-organize, tailor their methodologies, select their tools, and even adjust their composition to best suit their goals. The choice of projects should stem from the team's insights into what will generate the most value, rather than adherence to a centrally imposed plan or timeline. While leaders are crucial in guiding strategic focus, ultimate decision-making authority should reside with the teams themselves.
The greatest challenge in cultivating autonomous teams lies in fostering an environment where psychological safety is paramount—an environment that encourages experimentation, risk-taking, and the possibility of failure. In traditional command-and-control settings, the implicit message is to seek approval before acting, to avoid decisions that might lead to reprimand. Transitioning to a culture of autonomy demands leaders not only allow but actively promote smart risk-taking and value learning from setbacks. Celebrating those who dare to innovate and sharing insights from failures nurtures a culture where autonomy thrives.
Importantly, autonomy doesn't equate to isolation or misalignment among teams. Even with decentralized decision-making, it's essential to maintain a level of coordination that prevents conflicting efforts. Mechanisms like regular demonstrations, informal sharing sessions, and accessible documentation help in maintaining an awareness of the broader organizational activities. Clearly defining roles and responsibilities, setting well-understood interfaces between teams' outputs, and encouraging parallel development are strategies aimed at fostering "aligned autonomy"—the liberty to act within a unified strategic framework.
By moving away from a control-centric leadership style to one that empowers team autonomy, leaders can tap into the collective decision-making capacity of their organization. Inspiring teams with a compelling mission, equipping them for complete problem ownership, and cultivating a supportive environment for innovation lays the groundwork for solving complex challenges in novel ways. In an era defined by rapid change and temporary competitive edges, the capability to leverage decentralized decision-making speed becomes a critical determinant of enduring success and growth.
Implementing a Decision Velocity Culture
Transitioning an organization from centralized control to a culture of autonomous decision velocity is a formidable task. It demands leaders not just to advocate for new mindsets and methodologies but also to actively dismantle the entrenched assumptions and rewards that uphold the old ways. Like all significant transformations, moving towards a culture of decision velocity requires patience, determination, and an openness to adapt along the journey.
A typical pitfall in this transformation is leaders espousing the virtues of empowerment and autonomy, only to revert to command-and-control behaviors under pressure. Such inconsistencies undermine the credibility of pro-autonomy messages, teaching employees to disregard the rhetoric. As a leader, you must brace for the unease of watching your teams navigate uncertainties and make errors, consciously resisting the urge to seize control at every minor hiccup.
To gain traction in fostering a decision velocity culture, concentrate on engaging with teams and individuals most receptive to the shift. Cultivate a core group of early adopters who can exemplify the advantages of increased autonomy and thereby generate a demand for change among their colleagues. Attempting to early on sway the staunch skeptics and detractors early can stall progress; better to let them join willingly after witnessing the positive outcomes.
Empowering teams with greater autonomy also means providing them with the necessary tools and processes for effective decentralized coordination. Implement a rhythm of brief, regular check-ins—such as daily standups for updates and obstacles. These practices aim to ensure fluid communication without resorting to overbearing oversight.
To ensure autonomous teams remain focused on high-value activities, it's vital to create mechanisms for continuously revising priorities based on actual experiences. Shift away from rigid, long-term planning in favor of breaking tasks into smaller, iterative segments and sprints that can be adjusted as new insights arise. Limit the duration of research, design, and planning phases to prevent excessive preliminary investment, prioritizing tangible learning over speculation. This approach keeps teams agile, responsive and aligned with the evolving needs of the organization and its clients.
Implementing a culture of decision velocity greatly benefits from making team efforts transparent by default. Encourage team members to chronicle their work openly—be it through progress updates, pivotal decisions, or insights gained—utilizing user-friendly collaborative platforms. This visibility not only keeps the entire organization in the loop but also gently nudges teams towards consistent progress and maintaining their work at a presentable standard.
Beyond adjusting structures and workflows, nurturing a decision velocity culture necessitates a transformation in daily interactions. Leaders play a crucial role in valuing dissent, rewarding the inquisitive, and fostering environments conducive to robust discussions. They must work tirelessly to eliminate fear and ego from the workplace. Teams that embrace prudent risk-taking and transparently evaluate their failures deserve recognition. Seize every chance to celebrate such teams, highlighting them as exemplars of the behaviors that drive decision velocity.
Accelerating organizational decision velocity transcends the mere adoption of a specific method; it's about wholeheartedly adopting a comprehensive ethos. It acknowledges the indispensable value of leveraging the collective intellect and creativity of self-directing teams in an era marked by swift change and transient opportunities. It understands that true velocity isn't the product of flawless planning but results from ongoing experimentation and adjustments informed by rapid feedback. Above all, it's rooted in a firm belief in the extraordinary capabilities of motivated individuals to achieve wonders when provided with a lucid mission, strategic clarity, and genuine psychological safety. While the journey toward a decision velocity framework will undoubtedly encounter challenges and setbacks, committing to this approach is crucial for cultivating organizations capable of prevailing in the long term.