How does governance and decision making happen in your company?
If it is like most large corporates, it happens very slowly and inefficiently. The absence of a “decision making culture” in many companies can be astounding, especially in companies that, from the outside, you would think are very well managed.
Management by committee has become prevalent. Committees which, almost by definition, cannot in themselves make strong, required decisions and related action plans. When have you last heard that “the committee (or leadership team) is accountable for x or y”? An individual can be accountable – committees cannot. In addition, on a committee (or leadership team) when key decisions need to be made it is a very brave individual who sticks his or her neck out against perceived consensus.
So what to do? It is all about leadership at the end of the day. How leaders are able to take themselves out of their comfort zone, to drive single point of accountability and to encourage dissenting views amongst their leadership teams.
