This is decision compression in motion. Trigger warning! I am going to talk about a poor customer service experience with an airline. So buckle up, put on your oxygen mask, and take a deep breath.
An airline that shall remain unnamed mistakenly double charged me for three cross-country plane tickets. My request for a refund went to supervisors, was transferred to different departments, and one helpful soul gave me a fax number to call.
The saga continued for 2+ months and involved multiple phone calls, emails, and letters but no one could solve my problem. I was on the phone with my seventh representative to solve the problem, when I began to hear their own frustration. They were upset because they could identify my problem, but weren’t empowered to solve it.
At each level, the employee had to call someone more senior. And that person would likely have to call another someone more senior.
Exasperation when someone is disempowered and unable to make appropriate level decisions is something that all organizations face. We call it decision compression and it impacts everyone.
Centralized Leadership Is an Easy Trap to Fall Into When You’ve Just Taken on the Role
What Is Decision Compression?
Decision compression happens when a more senior person withdraws decision rights (either voluntarily or as a requirement) from a more junior person and assumes the role of the decision maker. When this happens there are three parties impacted.
Who All Are Impacted by This Style of Centralized Leadership?
First, the junior person, who isn’t being developed to deal with obstacles, becomes confused about their role and frustrated by the redundant work when their boss becomes involved.
Second is the senior person who is working at the wrong level (WAWL). They are too far in the weeds and focusing on fighting fires, blinding them to the broader factors impacting their business.
And the last person is the client, who suffers the consequences of delays in their service, increased costs, poor customer service, and a high degree of frustration.
No matter where you sit in an organization or in relation to an organization, you are impacted by decision compression. The four kinds of decision compression, each with its own symptoms, are more easily addressed when they are identified.
Types of Decision Compression (and the Antidote to Centralized Leadership)
Why Decision Compression Occurs
- Unclear > Leaders aren’t clear about what they are supposed to do
- Unskilled > Leaders lack the skills to do what they are supposed to do
- Unwilling > Leaders are simply unwilling to do what they’re supposed to do
You will notice that all these reasons place the onus on leadership. Decision compression is a top down issue. Some leaders may claim that their team is too junior, which is why they must swoop in and make the decisions. There are lots of fun explanations as to why you can’t develop your team, but none of them are as effective as simply developing your team.
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Tips for Leaders on Addressing Decision Compression
Tip #1: Tap into the “Quantified Self,” using the data you have about yourself at your fingertips. For example, want to know how you spend your time? Look at your calendar. Where are you spending your time and with whom? What are the issues and outcomes? In a similar fashion, check your actions against the four kinds of decision compression in the chart above.
Tip #2: Give people space to do their jobs. In the words of Stephen Covey, “You can’t hold someone accountable for results if you supervise their methods.” Pick your battles; know when to get involved and more importantly when not to get involved.
Be prepared to support your team members when they fail, which is a significant shift from preventing failure. (You may think you’re helping out, for others it may seem like arbitrary leadership.)
Tip #3: Replace compression with engagement. Share information with your team and ask them how they would approach an issue. Ask employees to identify ways to eliminate the bottle necks from decision compression. What processes slow you down? What customer complaints are we consistently seeing and how can we resolve them quicker?
Reward your team members for identifying effective ways to battle decision compression and then implement them.
Tips for Junior Team Members on Addressing Decision Compression
This is a tougher battle.
Tip #1: Tap into the “Quantified Self.” Just like leaders, use the data about yourself. Look at your job description and identify the decision rights required to do your job. Track to see what is preventing you from making the critical decisions. Look at your calendar to see if you are spending your time flying at the right level.
Analyze which meetings you are not attending and why. (Warning: Decision compression can be a tempting excuse for arbitrary leadership or other issues you need to address.)
Tip #2: Engage in a conversation with your boss. Identify the decision rights you require and the consequences of not having those rights. Then have a conversation about what is needed to shift the process and enable you to make the critical decision.
Tip #3: Model the behavior you want to see changed. If you lead a team, empower them and engage them. Push decisions to the individuals on your team who have the most information and greatest insights.
In contrast to my experience with the airline, I had the pleasure of working for Ritz-Carlton where decisions were pushed down to the most junior level.
Information was transparent, and employees could make decisions on any issue with a cost implication of less than $2,000 without asking permission from anyone. That quantity and the overall empowerment granted was not lost on me, because $2,000 was more than my monthly salary!
New employees would test the policy by asking their new manager for permission, only to be told, “You can make that decision. Call me when you have an issue that you can’t resolve for $2,000.”
The managers were focused on doing their jobs, not their team members’. When explaining the policy to new hotel staff, I felt like Oprah giving away cars, except I was shouting “You! You! You get to decide!”
May we all have the courage to create more Oprah moments and less airline travesties.
If you are curious to learn more – check out our more in-depth articles on this topic (Leading at the Right Level I; Leading at the Right Level II)
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