SmartPulse — our weekly nonscientific reader poll in SmartBrief on Leadership — tracks feedback from more than 160,000 business leaders. We run the poll question each Tuesday in our e-newsletter.
Last week, we asked: How clear are decision-making authority and decision rights in your organization?
- Pretty clear — occasionally there’s confusion as to who gets to make the call: 46%
- Hazy — we’re usually not sure whose call it is: 24%
- Crystal clear — everyone knows who gets to make which call: 21%
- Mud — no one has any idea who gets to make which call: 10%
Who’s calling the shots? From the looks of it, many of you need to clarify decision-making rights in your organization. If more than 30% of you aren’t clear on who makes decisions, then invariably decisions don’t get made, or confusion and frustration set in when they do. Even for those in the “pretty clear” group, it’s still not good enough to have confusion over who makes the calls. If you can clarify decision-making authority, your organization will move more quickly, experience less frustration and spend more time executing than figuring out what you should be doing.
Mike Figliuolo is managing director of ThoughtLeaders and author of “One Piece of Paper.”