INTROIDUCTION

Managers make countless individual decisions for which they are personally responsible and accountable. However, in most organizations managers collectively are also required to decide and implement decisions that will impact their entire organization simultaneously. It is these latter collective decisions that I refers to as “CORPORATE”.

In this series of six articles, I lay out a step by step process for corporate decision making.  My experience has demonstrated that it both helps groups arrive at and implement sounder decisions and provides the sort of management accountability any organization has the right to expect from those in charge.

I suggest reading them in order because each step builds on what comes before. This article is STEP 3

HOW WE DECIDE AND UNANIMITY OF SUPPORT

There are three standard methods for reaching a group decision. I have participated in each and see little reason to suggest one over the other.  They each are effective, depending on the understanding each group member brings to the decision process and what happens after the decision  is rendered.

Groups headed by a strong number one often agree — or are given no choice — to let the boss make the decision. This happens usually after each of the group members has had their say. I remember once asking a forceful boss if we would vote on a matter, to which they replied, “why bother when my vote is the only one that counts”.

Other groups prefer voting on issues with majority rule carrying the day.  With this method it is important that voters refrain from horse trading votes, a practice characteristic of  parochial-driven bureaucratic politics. The goal is to make a corporate decision.

Finally, some groups opt for a consensus approach. This requires the group to agree on some method for determining when an actual acceptable consensus exists.  Does a consensus require 100% agreement?  Or is perhaps 70% agreement an acceptable decision point?  Generally, the consensus approach implies something more than a simple majority but less than everyone’s agreement.

Whichever decision method a group selects, the key is what happens next.  If you recognize the following — around here, first we decide and then the debate begins — you’ve got trouble. When this happens, no decision has actually been made.  More debate is simply a continuation of discussion. Worse, many groups hold on to the fiction that they have really decided something, ignore the fact that implementation is indefinitely postponed, and allow the debate to continue until it exhausts itself.

This jiggery-pokery clearly serves the purpose of those who did not like the decision from the start and adopt the ongoing debate as a means to euthanize it  This is bureaucratic politics at its best or worst depending on your point of view but not a corporate decision making process.

Once a specific decision is made, all group members must agree to give it their full support and participation in the implementation. At this point, discussion and debate  should stop. There is important work to be done in rolling out and implementing the decision and re-litigating old arguments only gets in the way.

Some group members may find this hard. Some may feel they lost, while others dread having to defend the decision before their angry parochial constituency. But without unanimous going-forward support for a given decision, effective corporate decision making is impossible.

UPDATED May 2026

Categories: Exercising Responsibility, Leadership, Managing & Leading

Tags: advice for managers, advice for managers from managers, best managers, change leadership, decision making, effective management and leadership, effective managers and leaders, executive leadership, exercising authority, management accountability, management advice, Managing & Leading