There is not only bold decision-making and fearful indecision, but there is also something in the middle that is often seen. This is where boldness is not shown, and the indecision is passed on to others who are in the same decision-making process. This is something to avoid whenever possible. If you have a group of ten people, and you are decisive in some way, it will benefit the whole group. On the other hand, if you join in with others in presenting indecisiveness, you will all feel a little weak.
Decisiveness is something that you may feel a little resistance toward from others, but they will be quite glad that you implemented it during a situation of uncertainty. The deciders keep the process moving along, and since this is in every one’s self-interest, you want to be one of them, so that others chime in decisively as well, following your example.
Let’s say you are at a meeting about deciding how you want to reach new clients. If you go to this meeting with the mindset that you are going to make decisions and pronounce them to others, the meeting can go smoothly and quickly. One of the main causes of a dull or ineffective meeting is that one or more people don’t show initiative in going with a decision in their mind. This causes the whole group to wonder if they are being too bold with what they are saying, and results in stagnation.
Decisiveness is as contagious as yawning, as others will have no choice but to back up their decisions more strongly as well, in order to protect their views from being ignored. It is the right kind of pressure to put on others.
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
Twitter: swollenthumb
July 13, 2009 at 12:28 am
Hi Armen,
There’s nothing worse than a meeting where nobody says anything and just sits and listens to the boss or whoever speak for an hour. I always speak up at meetings, and sometimes I get weird looks, but that’s fine. I’m not going to sit and waste my time like that. If the people holding the meetings just wanted to pass information around, they’d do it via email. Meetings are about coming together to solve problems and to think of new ideas as a team, so yes. Decisiveness can be a powerful tool to bring to a meeting, as long as it’s complemented with open-mindedness.
Great point Armen. Meetings without some decisions made are often useless. As you say, if you setup or go to a meeting knowing what the decision to be made is, the meeting goes much smoother.
Trey has a great point as well that there still must exist room for open-mindedness. Discussion of problems can easily be done with room to listen and take new viewpoints, ideas and still assign time and energy to decide on the problem before ending the meeting. Even if the decision is to meeet again or followup with action items, at least some obvious progress is made.
Trey: Hello to you. That sure is the type of situation that is somewhat hilarious, although not at the time. You have a group of people coming together to supposedly bring about change, and then when the time comes to discuss that change, all is quiet. I am glad you brought up that part about open-mindedness, because close-minded folk that are decisive head down their self-created dead-end street.
Mike: Thanks for that. Some might say that anytime two or more people meet together, they should all be moving on to the next step as a group. That would make any other type of meeting seem out of place, and habits like that become easy to protect.