Is chaos like a wild horse? The root for the word "manage" is an Italian word that means "to train a horse." Inhumane horse trainers (managers) see a rebellious animal who must adjust to a new environment. They transform the horse through a process they call "breaking." They break the will of the horse so it submits to the will of the human. … [Read more...]
Gradient of Agreement
I'm a big fan of Sam Kaner's Guide to Participatory Decision-Making, ISBN 0-86571-347-2. I highly recommend it to anyone who leads meetings. In my post on Decide as a Team, I wrote about using a method called Roman Evaluation to reach a decision. Kaner talks about a more formal concept he calls Gradient of Agreement in his book. I am less … [Read more...]
Managing Low-Energy Decisions
Teams will take action on high-energy decisions. Action is less certain with low-energy decisions. How do you detect a low-energy decision? What do you do about it? After taking a deep breath, Emily said, "I propose that we create a monthly newsletter about our service offerings and send it to our clients." Her proposal responded to … [Read more...]
I Won’t Stand In the Way
What do you do when a teammate says, "I won't stand in the way of the team accepting the proposal." and when asked directly whether they will support the proposal, they hem and haw without clearly saying "Yes."? In my post on Decide as a Team, I discussed how a team can use the Roman Evaluation Process to make a consensus decision and, if … [Read more...]
Decide as a Team
Do some members of your team make agreements during meetings but fail to support them afterwards? If this behavior is happening, I suspect your team is using an obscure process to make decisions. Identifying Obscure Process An obscure decision making process is easy to identify. Ask each member to create a map of the process used to make team … [Read more...]