It is the pandemic times. It is the digital transformation times. And it is the cultural reckoning times. It has truly been a most trying year. During periods of difficulty and frustration, it can feel like the work being put in isn’t closely tied to the direction that things go. The impact of your contributions might feel miniscule.

One of the biggest challenges in any organization, on all teams, and a source of conflict between individuals since the beginning of time is decision making. Who gets to make the decisions causes conflict. How the decisions get made causes conflict. The actual decisions, ironically, tend to cause the least amount of conflict.

In the news lately we’ve heard stories of side discussions, exclusion, and in the worst cases discrimination. Former Pinterest COO Francoise Brougher posted about her discrimination suit against the company. She speaks of “day-to-day operations were marked by secretiveness. Executive meetings were brisk, formal, and did not confront critical issues the company faced. There was both no collegial banter and no debate.” She adds “the ‘in group,’ the men invited to the “meeting after the meeting,” held all the power and influence.”

Now it’s impossible to tell from the outside looking in how things were (or are) at Pinterest. Yet, we can take the picture she paints and imagine a hypothetical organization. One where we could create the decision making culture.

How would we make decisions?

You see, decision making in an organization is an exercise of power. One could argue that the stronger the decision making process in an organization, the more collective power there is to be unleashed. Distributing decision making to more people by creating a strong process framework could really transform an organization.

So no, this isn’t a post on how to prevent discrimination. Or that decision making standards can accelerate or mitigate the transgressions. But, some frustrated feelings can potentially be cured by upgrading institutional decision making.

When you think about it, how many organizations spend time deciding how they will make decisions? How many executives are told they don’t have a rigorous process for decision making?

Well, it takes time away from making decisions to come up with a decision making process…in the short term. Amazon is famous for their decision making processes written about here or here or many other places.

Matt Mochary, former startup CEO, investor, and author of The Great CEO Within, borrows from the written Amazon approach. He lays out a simple and digestible decision making process hierarchy (paraphrased below) to help teams create more transparency and a focus on “buy in”. This allows teams to facilitate a culture of open decision making and shared commitment in how decisions get made and stood behind.

The key? Putting in the extra time and effort. Here are his three types of decisions:

1.) Management led decision
2.) Management appointed team member to frame a decision
3.) Team discussed & consensus led decision

1.) Management led decision
Here the leadership group or individual makes the decision, hopefully explains it, and perhaps takes questions. Minimal back and forth, this one is top down led. Worthy option for low level, “ToDo” list type items.

2.) Management appointed team member to frame a decision
A team member lays out an argument for a certain path forward in order to share with the team and spark a discussion. Feedback is given and participants are able to add their perspective in order to come to a decision. Has the benefit of getting more members of the team involved with the heavy lifting led by a single team member and/or the leadership group.

3.) Team discussed & consensus led decision
The entire team is invited to a meeting to discuss a topic, share ideas, give feedback, and ideally come to a decision through consensus agreement. Has the benefit of drawing from a wide variety of perspectives and creates a lot of ownership if you’re able to reach consensus.

This hierarchy ladder, of course, dictates that the more involved and complicated the decision the more time it will take. Care, thoughtfulness, and effort are needed to bring a cultural process like this into a team’s workflow.

Fostering cultures where the best ideas can be surfaced out in the open and debated is not quite strategy. In fact, it doesn’t say anything about the “what” or the quality of the decisions being made. This Farnam Street post does a much better job of focusing on making good decisions. Still, improving the process alone can be a great start to better decision making and healthier cultures.

Drawing the best ideas, work, and contributions of your team out into the open promotes rigor and transparency. The benefits will surely compound. The more seats at the table, for the most important debates, creates the most leverage and knowledge unleashed to win in the marketplace.