Decision making
We make decisions every day, all the time, mostly without thinking about how we are doing so. This is also true of teams. Understanding different forms of decision making can help your team work together effectively and more smoothly.
Aspects of decision making
We can break this down into three key parts: Who, What, and How. ‘Who’ covers both your immediate team, as well as any volunteers and those you want to benefit or impact with your work. ‘What’ can become a very long list, and it may help to group questions together on area or work (e.g. strategy or partnerships). Do not avoid sticky or difficult decisions; it is very important to plan for these so that when they do come up, you do not have to spend time deciding how to decide. ‘How’ is the different approaches or methods you can use.
Below are some starter questions.
Who
Whose voice or perspectives do we need to hear?
Who is implementing or doing the work itself?
Who is affected by our decisions?
Who has capacity to dedicate themselves?
What
What types of decisions will we need to make?
What type of strategic or operational questions are coming up?
Do we work with external partners? How do we interact with them?
Do we have financial or legal obligations?
How
What are our values and principles?
What kind of culture do we want to create?
What are our priorities, speed or collaboration?
Types of decision making
There are lots of different types of decision making, below is an overview of some of the most common in movements.
Top-down: One person or small group of people make decisions and the rest follow. This is fast and clear, but not often aligned with movement’s values and can separate the decisions from the action.
Consensus: Everyone agrees. This makes space for everyone to work together to find a solution that everyone agrees with. This can be helpful for building buy-in, but also time-consuming.
Democratic: Majority wins. This is clear, simple, and fast. It is possible for the same person or people to be consistently in the minority, leading to feeling unheard.
Consent: No one disagrees. This is more structured than the others listed here (see below for more detail), but balances collaboration and speed well.
Consent-based Decision Making
As this is the approach that is new for many movements and is more structured than the others, we have included more information on the consent decision making process below. Ideally, there is one facilitator who leads the team through. The facilitator and the proposer should not be the same person.
The proposer presents the proposal. The proposal covers both what it is and why it is needed. This would have ideally been shared with the team beforehand.
Clarification questions round: Everyone gets to ask questions that will help them understand the proposal. If someone doesn’t have a question, they can pass.
Reaction round: Everyone gets to briefly say what they think of or how they feel about this proposal.
Objection or Vote round: Everyone has to give one response from the following:
I consent
I consent with concern (and state the objection)
I object (Valid objections only, that will do harm to the movement or team)
Decision announcement
At each round, the proposer can amend the proposal as ideas may come up that had not been fully considered yet. An experienced facilitator can also suggest amendments to the proposal if there are concerns by, for example, suggesting that the team tries the proposal for six weeks. collecting information related to the concern, and then has a checkpoint to review the impact. For more detail see here and here.
Which method is right for your movement?
The short answer is: all of them.
Depending on the type of decision, the ‘how’ will vary. Depending on your governance or team structure, decisions can be delegated to different roles and teams. Bigger impact decisions, such as who you will partner with, creating a new team, or launching a new campaign, may require the more formal consent approach. Other types of decisions, like whether to have a new person join the team could be done by consent or democratically/majority vote.
Put this into practice
Have a workshop with your team or movement where you go through the Who, What, and How questions above (as well as any of your own). If you are meeting in person, using a whiteboard can be really helpful in getting everything in one place. If meeting virtually, programs like Jamboard or Miro.
You can use one of these decision-making charts as a template.
Who: Identify all the team members and stakeholders.
What: List all the decisions you can think of, the more the better.
If you have teams or working groups, start grouping decisions within their mandates.
If you do not have clear teams or working groups, start grouping similar decisions together (e.g. under ‘People & teams,’ ‘Finance,’ ‘Comms’). This process can also help identify which teams or working groups are needed.
Some decisions will not fit within any specific team, these are usually the higher-impact, strategic decisions that require wider input or involvement.
How: Once you have decisions grouped, you can start deciding which decision making methods are appropriate. For example, for the more strategic decisions around goal setting and launching campaigns, consent may be best. For deciding whether to hire a new team member, consensus may be best. For decisions around social media, this may be delegated to the comms lead or team.
Write it down. Whether in a formal constitution or not, write down what you agree so that it can be easily referred to going forward.
Revise it periodically. Movement grow and change fast. Have periodic reviews of your decision making to be sure it is working within your values and for your movement.
Further resources
The Decider App by NOBL
Consent Decision Making by Sociocracy for All
Dealing with objections by Sociocracy for All
Basics of Consensus by Group Facilitation