Guide to Decision Making by Helga Drummond

Author:Helga Drummond
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Published: 2012-07-23T16:00:00+00:00

Ending the debate

Patience may be a virtue, but dilatoriness is not. The UK authorities were accused of dilatoriness in their response to BSE (bovine spongiform encephalopathy or “mad cow disease” as it is popularly known). For ten years the official view was that it was unlikely that BSE posed any risk to humans and that beef was safe to eat. According to the official inquiry, over 170,000 animals died or were slaughtered as a precaution, and so far the death toll from the human variant, Creutzfeld-Jacob disease (CJD) is though to be at least 80 people in the UK, most of them young.

Consultation and discussion should be limited to what the situation affords. If decision-makers do not have the luxury of time, shortened debate is better than none at all. Or they could explain that there was no time to consult. As long as it does not happen too often, people will understand.

Striving for consensus risks any of those involved choosing to exercise a veto. What matters is ensuring that people have had the opportunity to express an opinion. Whether they agree with the decision is beside the point. It is also unwise to underestimate resistance. The most entrenched executives are usually those who profit most from the status quo. For example, James Dyson invented a new type of vacuum cleaner that would make a fortune. If Hoover had invented such a machine, it might well have gone the way of Microsoft’s tablet computer. Just as turkeys never vote for Christmas, the old order will never support change if it feels threatened. For instance, Microsoft also invented ClearType, a technology that improved screen reading. Other groups in Microsoft felt threatened by the new invention, so they did their utmost to discredit it:10

Engineers in the Windows group falsely claimed it made the display go haywire when certain colors were used. The head of Office products said it was fuzzy and gave him headaches. The vice president for pocket devices was blunter: he’d support ClearType and use it, but only if I transferred the program and the programmers to his control.

Rather than become involved in endless arguments, and be pulled this way and that by powerful factions, it may be better to announce a decision. Politics feeds off uncertainty. If decisions are cut and dried, there is nothing to resist.

Except implementing them, that is. Autocracy works best if others are allowed to shape the details. For instance, marketing people may lose 20% of their budget. The decision is non-negotiable, but they are allowed to shuffle funds between accounts in order to achieve the shortfall. In other words, always leave the other party with their self-esteem.

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