What not to do in a “collective decision-making”

Let us say that you are a Sales Manager and you are recommending one of your team members for promotion to the Management. During the review, however, it was observed that his performance has not been consistent and hence he should be given few specific assignment and his performance should be observed for about 6 months and then, based on the performance, he can be promoted. You are trying your best to convince however, it did not help much. You are disappointed about the decision. You think he is critical and you want to retain that person but you are not sure how well this is going to be received by your team member.

How would you communicate this decision to your team member and what is the option you will choose?

      1.   Tell him that you’ve tried your best. Convince the team member on what he needs to improve with data and assure all support will be provided from your end but he needs to scale up.

     

      2.   Tell him that you are convinced about his promotion. But Mr. ABC in the management team is not that convinced.

     3.   Say that you disagree with the management decision but you don’t have choice.

Just reading the scenario without any emotional involvement, looks like it is easy to choose option-1. However, if we were to be in a situation like this with emotionally involvement, many would tend to resort to option 2 or 3 or combination of both ( 2 & 3) especially if the person we’ve recommended is close to us.

What does it mean when you resort to option – 2 and 3

# Violation of basic Ethics. Nothing else.

# When there is a discussion, we have every right to disagree and substantiate our disagreement with correct data.  However, if a collective decision is taken and even if it’s different from what we proposed, we need to be bound by it and respect the decision.

# Any brutal disagreement with the decision making team during the discussion is also fine but we can never criticize the collective decision to others once it’s taken. Even if you were to be disappointed, you can never show it to others. If we do so, it is certainly not ethical.

# Moreover, it’s also kind of escapism that you blame others rather than taking ownership for what happened. May be you have not reviewed the performance more objectively or you have not convinced the management team with enough data or may be you are little favorable to your favorite employee etc.,

# When you pinpoint someone who did not agree to your proposal, it creates unnecessary enmity which is not healthy.  When someone says NO, it does not mean that they are bad. It’s just another perspective, probably a more objective perspective from a third person’s point of view in the best interest of the organization.

BTW, is it really possible to choose Option-1 ?

Yes. it’s possible provided

# You’ve been doing his review on a regular basis and communicating his strengths and what he needed to improve in a specific and quantifiable manner. So it becomes easy to highlight the improvement areas now.

# You’ve assured only Performance based promotion, not any specific “time-line” based promotions.

# You are keen to retain but you are not bent upon or you don’t think that he is dispensable to your team. Believe me, many times, when the most indispensable employees leave, you get a new-someone who is better than the most indispensable ones. 

So next time, when a collective decision is taken, even if you were to disagree, do respect it. If not, it will show you in a very bad light. Remember, not all organizations will show high tolerance for it. 

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