Brave New Work: Are You Ready to Reinvent Your Organization?

by Aaron Dignan

What about decisions that are clearly below your waterline? The ones that are really risky? One approach is to grant those decision rights to specific people or roles. But it’s often more powerful to leverage the advice process. In many Evolutionary Organizations, anyone can make a big decision, but first they must seek advice from colleagues who have experience with or will be affected by their choice. That means they seek them out, sit down with them, and talk through all the implications of the decision. This takes time and discipline. For an advice process to work, the person making the decision must be humble enough to seek advice and really listen. And advisers must be comfortable with the idea that their counsel may or may not be heeded. This is not stakeholder management where dozens of leaders get to tweak the proposal until it’s truly average. This is advice, plain and simple. Once a decision has been made, it should be shared transparently along with the rationale and perspectives that shaped it, so that others can learn too. When it works, this process creates a sense of ownership and responsibility that is hard to replicate.