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Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of iHeart Radio.
Good morning.
This is Laura.
Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast.
Today's tip is to determine who needs to be involved in a decision.
Then, trust that person or those people to make the decision.
And don't slow things down by involving others who don't have the time, the interest or the insights.
As I have studied how people spend their time at work, I am continually amazed at how much time is consumed by meetings.
People can literally be in meetings all day long, back to back.
That is one thing if you are leading the whole organization and every meeting requires a decision from you.
But I am guessing that is not what is going on with a lot of meetings.
Some are just misplaced methods of accountability.
You have a meeting to make sure people are still working on your project amid all the other meetings.
But others are about reaching decisions, which is the point of a meeting.
But these are meandering and ineffective because way more people are involved than need to be.
And I get it.
People like inclusive cultures.
We don't want to have cliques like in the middle school cafeteria.
Everyone is welcome at the table.
There is also truth to the fact that diverse perspectives can sometimes lead people to make better decisions.
Because a diverse group of people probably won't all share the same blind spots.
But that doesn't mean everyone needs to be involved in every decision.
Instead, it is often wise to streamline decisions and only involve the people who really know and care about it.
You can see how this might be true in your personal life.
If your family plans to get a new TV but you don't watch a lot of TV, you may want to weigh in on price and size, but you probably don't need to be involved after that.
If you and your spouse agree that you want the kids to do music lessons, but your spouse is a serious musician and you are not, You might agree that your spouse should select teachers or youth ensembles or camps and the like, and you can just execute on their more informed decisions.
Likewise, at work, maybe you are arranging the food for a work event.
Your boss might want to participate in the catering decision, but she might not.
So ask.
It is quite possible that she may simply want something decent within budget.
No need to keep meeting about it.
Now you have freed up time for both of you by limiting how many people are involved in the decision.
Sometimes you do need a broad range of voices to participate, but it is not practical for everyone who cares about the decision to literally be at the table.
That's when it pays to make sure diverse perspectives are represented, without inviting every single person.
Imagine a quartet with a soprano, an alto, a tenor, and a bass, not a 60-person chorus.
So if you are leading the effort to revise your company's annual review process, you'd want to make sure your advisory group includes people from various different departments and from different backgrounds.
But you simply can't include everyone who cares about this.
Too many people becomes unwieldy.
If a six-person team spends 20 hours on the project, that is 120 person hours.
But if a 12-person team tackles the project, it will probably take longer, perhaps 25 hours, since you have to listen to everyone.
And all those extra people will respond to everyone else as well.
If you do the math, that is 300 person hours, 2.5 times as much staff capacity.
I am not sure that the ultimate decision is going to be 2.5 times better.
So, instead of involving more people, thoughtfully select as small a team as would be reasonable and then trust the team you have assembled.
If you are concerned about people feeling left out, publish the list of team members so that everyone else can share their ideas or concerns with them.
But don't involve everyone directly. all the gears will grind to a halt.
When there is a decision to be made, determine who has the knowledge and insight needed to make a good decision and who is interested in the decision, and leave everyone else out of it.
That is how you get things done.
In the meantime, this is Laura.
Thanks for listening.
And here's to making the most Thanks for listening to Before Breakfast.
If you've got questions, ideas, or feedback, you can reach me at laura at lauravanderkam.com.
Before Breakfast is a production of iHeart Media.
For more podcasts from iHeart Media, please visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
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