

Our people are not discussing about it.. - satyan
http://onsoftwares.com/2010/07/01/decision-making-and-organizations/

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RiderOfGiraffes
This post attracted my attention for several reasons, but I'm having trouble
understanding the flow and finding the point.

* _Well.. here’s an interesting solution:_

What follows appears not to be a solution - it's a story.

* _When organizations make decisions that their people need, you have multiple advantages._

I don't understand this at all. I can nearly make some sense of it by reading
the next paragraph ...

* _People are naturally inclined with the decision, and its easier to motivate people to make it more effective. On the other side, when decisions are taken without considering the people, they mostly fall flat on their faces._

But where are the multiple advantages? Why do _I_ have advantages? I really
don't understand what you're trying to say.

* _It is also important to cultivate a culture of discussing important things._

Chicken and egg. Things will get discussed if and only if people think they're
worth discussing, but for some things, you don't realise they're worth
discussing until you've discussed them. You've stated the obvious, but have
offered no solution (as yet - I read on, waiting to see if there are any
practical suggestions)

* _The change wouldn’t have to be made from management side only,_

What change?

* _the employees are as much responsible for the decisions as the managers._

That's an interesting statement.

* _Once you have people expressing their opinions in a much clearer format and are debated on various forums, its easier to understand the pulse of the organization. Hence the decision-making process improves. This is one of the best ways to affect decisions in a democratic way._

Wait - you're advocating having decisions driven by discussions involving how
many people? If you can't get the decision makers to care, how will you get
enough ground-swell to make them care?

It seems to me that there's a hint of an interesting idea here, but I can't
really find it. I wish I could - perhaps you could write a more careful piece.

ADDED IN EDIT

In thinking about it further, it seems like you're saying this:

* Decisions don't get made by management unless they discuss the issues

* they don't discuss the issues if they have no interest in them

* They won't get any interest in the issues unless they hear and see the employees talking about them

* Therefore, get the employees talking about things,

* therefore the managers will notice,

* therefore they'll discuss them,

* therefore decisions will be made.

The chain is faulty. Getting employees talking is neither necessary nor
sufficient. It's not necessary because sometimes one of the managers will be
interested. It's not sufficient, because even if the employees are talking
about things, the managers may _still_ not care.

In any organisation of sufficient hierarchical depth, the only way employees
can get managers to make decisions is by getting the "on board" and acting as
advocates.

Discussion on forums, _etc,_ is a great way for managers to make employees
think they (the employees) are having an influence, and that they (the
managers) care.

~~~
satyan
@RiderOfGiraffes The write-up is about a bottom-up approach in making
organizational decisions. Most of the decisions as we know are made right at
the top, with minimal understanding of what people on the ground are actually
thinking about.

Once you start listening to your people and pick your organizational
directions from there, the whole decision making process gets more efficient.

Keep the floor open for different kind of discussions. Keep looking at what
discussions are catching heat (more people talking about it). Pick your
directions from them. That was the intent.

Eg. Which technology is the most popular among our folks? What kind of clients
are liked by our folks? What kind of work do our people prefer? etc. etc.

~~~
RiderOfGiraffes
OK, just a couple of points and I have to go.

* Why didn't you write that?

* For these sorts of decisions, why not empower the employees to do things _without_ requiring decision/dictats from on high?

* Most "chat" in forums like the ones you seem to be suggesting are a genuine, complete waste of time, and ...

* Most proposals from "the floor" have been really, really poorly thought through, and just won't work.

Now, let me say that I agree with what you're trying to accomplish, and that
your comments/thoughts have some merit, but as they stand they seem poorly
thought through and unimplementable in practice. I'd really like to see you
have something more concrete and practical to suggest that solve the problem
you think you've seen.

I manage a company with around 30 employees - not real big, but the sort of
shop where your ideas might be relevant, especially to implement them before
we get any bigger and change is harder. However:

* Which technology is the most popular among our folks?

We let them use whatever technology they want, provided they can then justify
their decision. We empower our people to make decisions and stand by them.

* What kind of clients are liked by our folks?

We don't have a choice as to our clients. We have multi-million dollar
contracts in a fairly small market.

* What kind of work do our people prefer?

I don't understand how that kind of question can be made relevant. Our
database people work on database stuff, our embedded people work on the
embedded stuff, our user experience people work on user experience stuff, and
everyone talks to everyone else, because all of the software modules talk to
all the other software modules. If a database programmer wants to work more on
the embedded side then he studies up on his own, asks for some tasks, gets
given some tasks under supervision, then his skill set is bigger and the task
allocations can be more favorable to him.

In short, it sounds like you're sounding off without really thinking about how
things really work. I'd like to see a better, more thought through
presentation.

Finally, it might sound like I'm attacking you, or picking on you, but I am
genuinely interested in any ideas on how better to manage. I'd hoped there was
something interesting in your article, I feel like there's a hint of something
interesting in your article, but then it all went away and feel like I was
left with nothing.

If there's more, write it better.

