Teams That Spin Without Making Critical Priorities and Decisions
Teams that frequently discuss issues endlessly without reaching a decision are hugely ineffective. But it isn’t their fault.
Sometimes the team leader just needs to make the call.
Leaders who prefer to operate as a peer or cling to a commitment to consensus can create quite a problem for an otherwise effective group. In their desire not to take control, they allow the team to spin, talking incessantly about the same issues over and over without any closure.
For some unfortunate teams, these leaders rarely step in and take control when they need to. In other cases, a team only spins on a given issue or during a period of time because the leader only momentarily refuses to settle the matter.
Good leaders don’t use their decision-making rights until they need to. They prefer to allow the team to reach consensus on even the weightiest issues by doing the hard work of working through opposing views.
But on critical matters that require a decision, however, there comes a time when consensus will not be realized. Some leaders miss this moment or purposely refuse to step in and resolve the situation with a decision. They implicitly allow the team to keep exploring the issue. They allow the team to spin.
This turns out poorly for everyone.
Teams spin anytime they continue to discuss an issue without a deadline for resolution. They rehash and retrace arguments over and over.
Even though they realize that more hours of discussion will be unlikely to resolve differences in opinion, they stay the course. Frustration builds and team members tire of the never-ending discussion loop.
Candor suffers when no end seems in sight. What a mess. Without a leader who is willing to step in, summarize the arguments, and make the call, this pattern just repeats itself.
Achieving consensus on critical issues creates buy-in and commitment to decisions. Good leaders work hard to build consensus on as many issues as they can.
But when, after lengthy discussion, it becomes clear that consensus will not be reached, leaders must make the call. If they refuse, for whatever reason, the team becomes highly ineffective. Critical decisions happen too slowly if they happen at all.
The best leaders set a reasonable timeline for the team to fully explore any issue and to reach agreement as to what to do about it. Once the time runs out, they refuse to let the team spin. They make the decision and move on to other issues.
Leaders and teams that don’t understand this are destined to incessantly discuss the same issues without hope for closure. This is what workplace torture looks like.
I think it's worth also mentioning what a good leader does after a decision is made. Takes responsibility for any outcomes from that, if there are problems take responsibility and communicate why they made that choice. It can be scary to have other people blame a leader for mistakes, but I think this is subverted by leaders proactively taking responsibility for any outcomes.
It seems that a leader is defined by an ability to take away the fear of deciding on his team. It is what makes leadership a very lonely calling. You are damned if things go south, which easily overshadows any glory you'd have received. It is this decisiveness that makes a good leader communicate (bring commonness), and keep reminding his team of the end goal or just point of the discussion. Without the end goal in mind, discussions will just run along to infinity. Time is of the essence and the team must ultimately move to the next point of discussion. The leader is the midwife of this transition.