Empowering People to Make Decisions

“Would you just make a decision already?”

I’ve said those words out loud plenty of times, but this time I was posing the question to myself, while staring at a 60-pound crate of apples. The decision at hand: Does this apple look good enough to keep?

I frequently encounter questions like this during volunteer shifts at my local food bank where there are a surprising number of decisions to make. Most of the time the answer is obvious, but getting stuck on one apple bottlenecks the entire process of sorting through 60 pounds of apples.

My fellow volunteers run into the similar situations every week. One week it’s apples the next its onions, but the decisions and the questions never stop. How do you want to organize this? Where do the crates of past go? How should we label the snack items? It’s one decision after the other and it’s the biggest roadblock to productivity.

The reason we get stuck is because we all want the best possible outcomes. We home in on being successful and doing it “right” to the point we get stuck on a little decision. The best way to get unstuck in those moments is to consider what failure looks like.

Let me explain. Getting consensus on one apple isn’t as important as getting through an entire crate in less than 5 minutes. The consequence of composting one iffy apple is negligible compared to slowing down the process to the point you can’t sort the entire crate in the allotted time all because you couldn’t make a decision.

You’re probably not sorting apples at work but you are making a series of decisions throughout the day and more importantly you’re probably trying to empower members of your team to develop the skills needed to make more decisions.

My advice? Don’t forget to tell them what failure looks like. It’s not a scare tactic, it’s a safety net.

Simply saying, “I’m empowering you to make a decision.” Or “I’d like you to make this decision,” isn’t enough. It might sound like a vote of confidence to you, but to someone who isn’t accustomed or practiced at making decisions it can lead to panic and self-doubt.

Telling people what failure looks like isn't a scare tactic, its a safety net and it can inspired confident action in decision making.

Even saying something like, “There’s no wrong decision.” Doesn’t help because there’s still concern over disappointing you or not coming to the same decision as you. You can address those fears and increase confidence by spelling out what constitutes failure in how you frame the conversation.

 “I trust you to make this decision. The only way you’re not successful is if you haven’t made the decision by Friday morning at 10am.”

“Where do you want to go for dinner? The only bad option is a restaurant on the other side of town because of the construction and traffic to get there.”

A little more context and guidance is like putting up lane bumpers at the bowling alley. It still takes effort to knock down the pins but you know you’re on track the entire time. Combine those guardrails with a good process and guiding principles (which you’ve probably already talked about) and you will truly be empowering people on your team to make decisions.