Should Your Team Consult You About a Decision or Not?

TTL 1

👋 Good Morfternight, this is Paolo Belcastro, with the inaugural edition of: TTL: Tools & Thoughts for Leaders.

Here on TTL, we’ll dig into practical leadership tips and effective strategies, with a particular focus on tech leadership and managing distributed teams (that’s what I do every day).

Whether you’re steering a tech startup or leading a remote team, these insights are designed to help you navigate the complexities of modern leadership.

Today’s topic is decision-making. Not your decisions, though, but those of your teams. I’ve been asked many times whether I should be consulted before making decisions.

Here’s one of those occurrences that happened a few months ago and ignited the reflection I am sharing today.

The answer is: it depends! On what? Let’s find out!

The Approach

Rigid rules for decision-making (or, really, any other situation in life) often lead to frustration because they fail to account for the nuances and variability of different situations. In dynamic and complex environments, such as leadership of distributed teams, flexibility and context-awareness are crucial. That’s why principles and frameworks yield better results than rule books.

The principle here is that all decisions are not the identical, and therefore they shouldn’t be all made in the same way. The tool to determine how to proceed with each decision is a framework I am particularly attached to: a 2×2 matrix.

Why? Our brain is wired to compare, not to analyze. If you don’t believe me, think about a couple of simple examples:

• If you hold an object in your hand, it is very difficult to estimate its weight with precision, but if you hold two objects, one in each hand, it is trivial to tell which one is heavier.
• If you look at any spot on a black and white photo it’s almost impossible to determine with precision its exact luminosity, but comparing two spots, you can instantly say which one is brighter.

In the world out there, being able to quickly compare options—such as which fruit is riper, which tool is more effective, or which animal is more dangerous—provides an evolutionary advantage.

So, having a comparison scale is essential. A 2×2 matrix allows us to compare decisions along two orthogonal axes, which will give our brain a quick, visual way to estimate the importance and risk of the decision we are about to make.

The Decision-Making Framework

In navigating team discussions, it’s crucial to distinguish between threads that require decisions and those that don’t.

For non-decision threads—which are exploratory in nature and not intended to lead to a specific decision—there is no need to involve additional stakeholders, as team members will naturally encounter these posts during their regular browsing.

Conversely, for decision threads, it’s essential to assess the decision’s clarity and reversibility using a 2×2 grid. This evaluation helps determine the appropriate level of consultation and involvement needed from other team members, peers, and leads.

The Matrix

So, how do you build the matrix?

↔️ Horizontal Axis: Clarity of the Decision

This concept refers to how straightforward or ambiguous a decision is based on the available information, complexity of the issue, experience, and expertise of the team, past precedents, and stakeholder alignment.

• Left: Decisions that are clear-cut, where the correct choice is obvious, and there are no significant doubts.
• Right: Ambiguous Decisions, where the choice could reasonably go either way. These are coin flips.

↕️ Vertical Axis: Reversibility of the Decision

This concept refers to how easily a decision can be changed or undone. High reversibility means it can be altered with minimal cost or disruption, allowing for flexibility. Low reversibility indicates it is difficult or costly to reverse, requiring careful deliberation and greater stakeholder input to avoid significant negative consequences. Understanding reversibility helps determine the level of caution needed in decision-making.

• Bottom: Decisions that are easy to reverse, like revolving doors, where changes can be made with minimal cost or effort.
• Top: Decisions that are hard or impossible to reverse, like one-way doors, where reversing the decision is costly or impractical.

Four Decision Scenarios

So, what you are left with is this:

1. ↙️ Clear-Cut and Easy to Revert
   These decisions are straightforward, and getting them wrong has minimal negative impact. They can be changed. Individuals, or small groups within a team, can proceed without consultation.
2. ↘️ Hard to Make but Easy to Revert
   These are less obvious but can be changed without significant consequences. Consulting someone with field expertise can provide valuable insights. It is important to move fast, but track outcomes to verify whether you went in the right direction.
3. ↖️ Clear-Cut but Hard or Impossible to Revert
   These decisions may look obvious, but have significant implications if reversed. It’s essential to inform anyone who would bear the cost of a reversal. The higher the reversal cost, the wider the circle of notification should be. It is also critical to question one’s assumptions.
4. ↗️ Hard to Make and One-Way Decisions
   These decisions are both difficult to make and almost impossible to reverse. It is crucial to consult all relevant stakeholders, leverage expertise, understand prior art, gather and analyze data. These are the ones that benefit from all the time saved in the first two quadrants, as it can now be invested in slowing down the decision process.

So, when should your team involve you in the decision‑making process?

Straight answer: only in the Hard to Make and One-Way Decisions.

As a result, both you and your collaborators save valuable time and can operate more efficiently, concentrating on high-impact areas while fostering a sense of ownership and confidence within the team.

All the time saved in the first three quadrants allows you to be as thorough as possible in the last one.

⏭️ TLDR: By sharing and explaining this framework, with the teams reporting to you, you can help them determine when they can proceed autonomously, or when it is time to slow down and come talk to you.

This approach helps balance efficiency with thoroughness, ensuring that decisions are made with the appropriate level of input and consideration.

That’s it for today. If someone forwarded this to you,
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I also publish on paolo.blog and monochrome.blog

Cheers,

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