Dear leader… Rigorous choices

Dear leader, how clear are the choices you make with your team? In many management teams, there seems to be surprisingly little enthusiasm for actually making decisions together. The result: unclear communication.

Whenever organisations go through radical changes, there are often complaints about communication. Messages are not clear, people miss ‘the big picture’, questions are not properly addressed. The main cause is often not the communication itself, but the decision-making that it is based upon. I regularly see boards of directors being extremely satisfied with the result at the end of a decision-making process, while in reality no clear choice was made at all.

This is an interesting phenomenon. You might think that those directors lack the skills to make good decisions. Usually, the opposite is true. Anyone who regularly sees top teams at work knows what is going on: the individuals in such teams rarely have any interest in making clear choices. Their commitment and behaviour are aimed at keeping as much room as possible to make their own decisions about the things they are responsible for. And as good colleagues, they also grant that to their fellow directors. This is why they often limit the number of items to be collectively decided to the ‘boundary disputes’ – the things they really cannot settle themselves. And decision-making is successful when they have agreed on a wording ‘that everyone can get away with.’ Logically, no good communication can come out of that.

Is an executive team really a team?

This practice is not surprising when you consider that most boards are not set up to function as a team. To build an effective team, you select people who complement each other in style and skills and work with common goals. In most boards, members are primarily selected for the organisational unit they will lead. They are judged on their individual goals. So it makes sense that such a board is actually not a team but a consultation platform for representatives of the various organisational units. In a stable situation, that can be a good management model.

Alignment

It only becomes a problem when fundamental changes are needed to remain successful as an organisation. Then, it is necessary that the team at the top is genuinely aligned, communicates a clear vision, dares to make rigorous choices together and pushes ahead with implementation. Here, the role of the chairman is crucial. Not to make those rigorous choices himself, but to get the team to work together as one. This was apparent, for instance, after the takeover and break-up of ABN Amro. Chairman Rijkman Groenink was accused of making strategic mistakes. However, one of his directors later said: the only thing I blame him for is that he did not make us a team.

In our practice, creating alignment at the top turns out to be the most underestimated phase in a change process. For us, that is where good communication starts. The effect can be felt almost immediately in every corner of the organisation.

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Dear leader… 
Under this title, we are reissuing a series of 10 classic blogs on leadership communication and change. Michiel van Delden wrote them over the last few years, translating key lessons from these two disciplines to the world of managers.