Debates Without Decisions

Posted on October 22, 2010

Debates are necessary tools, but ultimately decisions must be made.  Debates without decisions send your team round and round in circles. Here are the three most common manifestations of this distraction and four strategies for mitigation.

After a blissfully distracting weekend I walk into the conference room for our Monday 8am top team meeting. The view of the San Francisco Bay distracts my attention as I wait for the last VP to arrive. Ever eager and feisty, Marie starts talking about the product launch strategy with the four others, bringing up contentious points that I could have sworn we had debated twice before. I notice a barge pick up speed on the water, and my mind drifts to thinking about the 1993 movie Groundhog Day starring Bill Murray, where he had to repeat the same day, over and over again. There was something he needed to learn before time would move forward again. I wondered what I needed to learn here to stop this re-debating problem, because it is maddening.

Debates without decisions waste inordinate amounts of time, delay execution, create chaos and increase team friction unnecessarily. As often as I see this, there exist a variety of forms of this malady. Think not only of top team meetings, but lower level meetings too, as the participants generally have less leadership and management experience, and are even more at risk.

The three most common presentations of this ailment are as follows.

Poorly Run Meeting. Even in simple matters, failure to be decisive comes when the meeting is poorly run. Several people talk about the issue, then move on to talk about the next issue. These meetings will feel like a brainstorming session if positive in tone, or an update briefing if neutral in tone, or a complaint session if the energy is negative. There are certainly times and uses for such discussion meetings, but they do not work well if the purpose of the meeting is to debate alternatives, come to a conclusion and then to start down a course of action.

Insufficient Preparation. Critical, complex issues require study, research and testing before a final decision is made. Too often people come together not having done sufficient homework, spend time debating based on conjecture and opinion, but they know that making a decision would be rash and risky (and it would be). So no decision is made and another meeting is scheduled down the road. The next meeting is often a repeat of the last if all the homework has not been completed.

Sore Losers. Some people get upset or irritated when the decision goes against them. Maybe they passionately believe that they were right and that the company is going down the wrong path. Or maybe they have ulterior motives for wanting it their way. No matter the reason, they find every opportunity to re-open the discussion, often “forgetting” the decision and re-debating, or claiming that the environment has changed and that a second look is warranted.

Strategies for Mitigation

Leadership. Nothing runs well in an organization without a single point of control. A debate (inside a meeting) requires a single point of control, specifically a facilitator. A well facilitated meeting has a person who controls the debate, makes sure the group comes to a decision and who documents that decision. Facilitating a meeting takes strength and can require stopping some people from talking while encouraging others. It can require forcing a vote or decision over the objections of a participant. More than anything, facilitation means following a process within the meeting. The role of facilitator should be assigned, and they should be empowered by the most senior member in the meeting.

There are many times when good facilitation can result in a consensus-based decision. This is not always the case. Sometimes when there is an impasse, it takes the leader of the business unit to step in and impose a decision on the team. In the absence of such a leader, or if they cannot or will not make the decision, the debate will begin to recycle. There is no substitute for leaders with the courage to make well-informed judgment calls.

Deep and Rich Debate. People that care about the organization need to express themselves and to spend time debating. It is normal to feel argumentative and uncomfortable, so long as it stays professional. The bigger the decision, the more time that must be spent airing out all the arguments and letting team members try and convince each other. In the thick of this dissention is where the team member’s brains connect and new ideas and approaches are discovered. Leaders that stifle this debate and send the team back to their “corners” will find that the debate recycles because it never fully occurred in the first place.

Some people will fall silent in a debate even though they disagree, and will surface their opinions later, or in side discussions, trying to derail the decision or otherwise manipulate the process. This is toxic, and not to be allowed. The leader should forbid this toxic behavior and require that all opinions be expressed in the debate/meeting in front of everyone.

Project Management of Complex Decisions. While most decisions are fairly quick and straightforward, the important ones cannot be made in one or two meetings. Imagine the decision to buy a 100 million dollar company. This is a process that takes months to complete, even if the decision is not to buy. The key to avoiding backtracking and re-debating such complex decisions is to run the process like a project, with specific, written steps. Each step will have a deadline, resources required, tasks listed, and responsibilities assigned. The project manager actively works to ensure that all participants who plan to come together for a meeting have done their homework, and are prepared to have a productive discussion, fully ready to make a decision. Also remember that a key early decision is deciding the rigor required for a given decision.

A great rubric for complex decisions or processes is a responsibility assignment matrix dubbed, RACI. It’s a system for assigning roles and responsibilities. The acronym stands for responsible, approver, consulted, informed. Laying out your matrix in writing using this matrix saves time and adds clarity. Read more in Wikipedia.

Documentation. It is not real if it’s not written. A critical tool to avoid endless debates is to write things down. Be sure to include:

1. The decision itself, and why. Include who is responsible and by when.
2. List what alternatives were discussed and not chosen. “Forgetting” to consider an alternative is a common reason to re-debate.
3. List what assumptions were made that guided the decision, so if anyone feels like the environment has changed requiring a re-review, this perception can be validated easily.
4. List expectations for the future – what the decision will result in. These are useful to determine if the decision was a good one.
5. List discreet trigger points where the decision must be re-evaluated. For example, “If the launch produces less than 400K in revenues in the second month, we’ll reconvene to reassess”. When you’re wrong, it’s best to re-debate and adjust.

The amount of documentation needed will vary depending on team behavior. If debates without decisions is a chronic problem, a high level of documentation will be required. But as people’s behaviors change, heavy documentation may only be required on the most contentious decisions.

In Groundhog Day, Phil (played by Bill Murray) was condemned to repeat the day until he learned to be sincere and giving. Finally, after what seemed like 50 repeats, he got it right, the world opened up to him and his life progressed again. Imagine what your company could do with all those hours of wasted re-debating freed up for productive uses!