Decision by committee affects employee engagement as it is very frustrating for the employees awaiting the decision. In a matrix organisation, where there are a lot of “dotted lines” of reporting or where the delegation of authority (DOA) is not clear, the decision making is slow. This bureaucratic stranglehold will be exacerbated where there is little understanding of the organisation structure as employees will become confused who should be making the decision and more time will be spent discussing who to ask than actually getting the decision made.
Another complication that affects employee engagement is requiring too many decision makers or approvers of the decision. There are too many cooks spoiling the broth, all the cooks have different ideas about what will make the best broth, and this slows down the process and limits collaboration. Multiple decision makers need to be readily available to give their thoughts, rationale needs to be explained from a variety of viewpoints and this gives rise to disagreements and ambiguity in the decision-making process.
In their book Humanocracy, Gary Hamel and Michele Zanini estimate bureaucracy costs the global economy more than $9 trillion in lost economic output each year and theorise that “busting bureaucracy is probably the most profitable thing any organisation can do.” They believe that bureaucracy is deeply dehumanising and are not surprised by the horrifyingly low engagement rates (20% Globally) given the way most organisations are run.
When you empower your employees at the front line to make the decisions within clear parameters it allows a smoother process. Of course, there may need to be some clarifications at times but if 80% of the decisions are readily made this not only cuts the red tape significantly increasing productivity but it also shows employees that they are trusted to do their jobs. Removing the requirement for approval for approval’s sake moves us towards a more empowered and engaged workforce.