The Idea in Brief
Some companies just can’t make up their minds. Plagued by indecisiveness, they never take action. Result? Chronic corporate underperformance.
For instance, a manager proposes a promising new idea during a meeting. Everyone withholds judgment until they discern the boss’s opinion. When she shows interest, the rest support the proposal, too—despite their questions and concerns. Within months, the project dies.
Why? During the meeting, people never expressed their real views. Intimidated by power dynamics, constrained by formality and mistrust, they spoke their lines woodenly, without committing to the plan. The apparent consensus belied the group’s true sentiment—unspoken reservations that strangled the idea after the meeting.
The meeting leader should have encouraged decisive dialogue—a powerful form of interaction characterized by incisiveness and creativity, diverse viewpoints, cohesiveness of seemingly unrelated ideas, and the search for truth. Decisive dialogue energizes and inspires people to action—giving organizations their most enduring competitive advantage.
The Idea in Practice
Steps to Decisiveness
Use these steps to infuse decisive dialogue and action throughout your firm:
1. It all begins with dialogue. During each encounter with employees, model honest, open, and decisive dialogue. Example:
When a unit head of a U.S. multinational confidently proposed a strategy for trumping a formidable competitor, the CEO commended him for the inspiring presentation—then initiated decisive dialogue to test the strategy. He asked realism-testing questions (“Just how are you going to make these gains?”) and insight-generating questions (“Where are the gaps in your competitor’s product line?”). Then he asked the manager to submit a more realistic alternative in 90 days.
The manager left feeling energized and focused—despite his proposal’s rejection—and adopted his boss’s decisive style with his own employees, spreading energy and determination throughout his entire unit.
2. Turn dialogue into action. Infuse honest dialogue into every meeting, and clarify accountability for reaching and executing decisions. Decisive meetings are:
- open—their outcomes not predetermined. Questions such as “What are we missing?” signal honest searching for alternative perspectives.
- candid—encouraging people to air the conflicts that undermine apparent consensus. When people express their real opinions, not what they’re “supposed” to say, productivity rises.
- informal—unscripted, with honest questions and spontaneity.
- marked by closure—people leave knowing exactly what they’re expected to do.
Example:
By modeling decisive dialogue among its leading scientists, clinicians, and marketers, two division heads at biotech giant Pharmacia encouraged these radically different groups to share ideas, perspectives, and responsibility for new-product development, and to disagree respectfully. Result? The antibiotic Zyvox—a blockbuster that none of the three groups could have envisioned or executed on its own.
3. Use follow-through and feedback to sustain action and productivity. Through honest feedback, leaders reward high achievers, coach struggling employees, and discourage progress-blocking behaviors. Example:
EDS CEO Dick Brown devised an evaluation process that ranks employees in quintiles and rewards them according to their performance relative to peers’. The process forces managers to give candid feedback to direct reports. Though painful, it encourages excellence and gives people the information they need to improve.
Does this sound familiar? You’re sitting in the quarterly business review as a colleague plows through a two-inch-thick proposal for a big investment in a new product. When he finishes, the room falls quiet. People look left, right, or down, waiting for someone else to open the discussion. No one wants to comment—at least not until the boss shows which way he’s leaning.
