![[PHOTO] Light streaming through a key hole illuminating an old iron key.](../images/ph_findings.jpg)
For an executive, manager or supervisor, making the best decisions starts with one word: ask.
Reach out to the opinions and recommendations of employees directly involved in a project, problem, decision or goal, says Paul C. Nutt, management researcher and author of Why Decisions Fail. He adds, managers throughout a company make the same sorts of mistakes that top executives do.
Nutt concludes:
Companies fail to involve employees even in simple, low-risk decisions. For example, UFDX purchased new trucks; however, the drivers are not asked for suggestions on who gets the trucks.
It makes absolutely no commercial difference to UFDX who gets what truck, reports the study, but it is taken personally by the drivers, who consider themselves professionals.
Even many organizations that advertise an empowered workforce really don't take advantage of passing on zero-risk and zero-cost decisions.
Research findings indicate:
Other typical examples are managers who order capital goods without talking with the people who will be using the equipment, Nutt said, and Chief Information Officers who choose software without caring about the preferences and hands-on experiences of those who will use it.
People in authority often say that asking for comments slow the process, Nutt says. "It actually doesn't. It speeds things up."
Superiors, whether executive or supervisor, fail to consider how much resistance their "I" decision creates from professionals, scientists, engineers, or workers who believe it is a mistake.
Managers compound poor decisions because they either won't admit their mistakes or because they want to distance themselves from any and all mistakes, Nutt says.
"Once there's a cover-up, there's always a cover-up of what was hidden," he said. It is so "business as usual" that people don't even call the cover-up a cover-up.
In many cases, when top managers like to second guess and blame subordinates for mistakes, lower-level workers keep negative information to themselves to be safe and politically correct.
Wouldn't it be better to just have asked?