Ask who needs to be involved

Streamline decisions by involving as few people as is reasonable

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of iHeartRadio. Good Morning.
This is Laura. Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast. Today's
tip is to determine who needs to be involved in
a decision, then trust that person or those people to

(00:25):
make the decision, and don't slow things down by involving
others who don't have the time, the interest, or the insights.
As I have studied how people spend their time at work,
I am continually amazed at how much time is consumed

(00:46):
by meetings. People can literally be in meetings all day long,
back to back. That is one thing. If you are
leading the whole organization and every meeting requires a decision
from you, I am guessing that is not what is
going on with a lot of meetings. Some are just
misplaced methods of accountability. You have a meeting to make

(01:11):
sure people are still working on your project amid all
the other meetings. But others are about reaching decisions, which
is the point of a meeting. But these are meandering
and ineffective because way more in people are involved than
need to be. And I get it. People like inclusive cultures.

(01:32):
We don't want to have cliques like in the middle
school cafeteria. Everyone is welcome at the table. There is
also truth to the fact that diverse perspectives can sometimes
lead people to make better decisions, because a diverse group
of people probably won't all share the same blind spots.

(01:54):
But that doesn't mean everyone needs to be involved in
every decision. It is often wise to streamline decisions and
only involve the people who really know and care about it.
You can see how this might be true in your
personal life. If your family plans to get a new
TV but you don't watch a lot of TV, you

(02:18):
may want to weigh in on price and size, but
you probably don't need to be involved after that. If
you and your spouse agree that you want the kids
to do music lessons, but your spouse is a serious
musician and you are not, you might agree that your
spouse should select teachers or youth ensembles or camps and

(02:42):
the like, and you can just execute on their more
informed decisions. Likewise, at work, maybe you are arranging the
food for a work event. Your boss might want to
participate in the catering decision, but she might not so ask.

(03:03):
It is quite possible that she may simply want something
decent within budget. No need to keep meeting about it.
Now you have freed up time for both of you
by limiting how many people are involved in the decision.
Sometimes you do need a broad range of voices to participate,

(03:24):
but it is not practical for everyone who cares about
the decision to literally be at the table. That's when
it pays to make sure diverse perspectives are represented without
inviting every single person. Imagine a quartet with a soprano,
an alto, a tenor, and a base, not a sixty

(03:44):
person chorus. So if you are leading the effort to
revise your company's annual review process, you'd want to make
sure your advisory group includes people from various different departments
and from different backgrounds. But you see, can't include everyone
who cares about this. Too many people becomes unwieldy. If

(04:08):
a six person team spends twenty hours on the project,
that is one hundred twenty person hours. But if a
twelve person team tackles the project, it will probably take longer,
perhaps twenty five hours, since you have to listen to everyone,
and all those extra people will respond to everyone else

(04:30):
as well. If you do the math, that is three
hundred person hours two point five times as much staff capacity.
I am not sure that the ultimate decision is going
to be two point five times better. So instead of
involving more people, thoughtfully select as small a team as

(04:54):
would be reasonable, and then trust the team you have assembled.
If you are concerned about people feeling left out, publish
the list of team members so that everyone else could
share their ideas or concerns with them, But don't involve
everyone directly. All the gears will grind to a halt

(05:14):
when there is a decision to be made. Determine who
has the knowledge and insight needed to make a good
decision and who is interested in the decision, and leave
everyone else out of it. That is how you get
things done in the meantime. This is Laura. Thanks for listening,

(05:37):
and here's to making the most of our time. Thanks
for listening to Before Breakfast. If you've got questions, ideas,
or feedback, you can reach me at Laura at Laura
vandercam dot com. Before Breakfast is a production of iHeartMedia.

(06:05):
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