The Performance Gap: Issue 17

Last week I wrote about role ambiguity - why unclear boundaries at senior level travel down the organisation and why the friction that appears at middle management level is usually a structural problem that originated above it. This week a related and equally underexamined problem: the gap between how teams think they make decisions, and what is actually happening.

Most senior teams believe they make decisions through a process. They are usually wrong.

Ask a senior team how they make important decisions and you will get a reasonably coherent answer. There is a governance structure. There is a meeting cadence. There is a process for bringing papers or proposals, and a mechanism for reaching a conclusion.

Observe the same team over time and a different picture usually emerges. Some decisions are made in the formal meeting and then re-litigated afterwards. Some are made in conversations that happen before the formal meeting, so that the meeting itself is a ratification exercise. Some are made by whoever is most persistent. Some are made by whoever last spoke to the senior leader before the decision point.

None of this is cynical. It is what happens in any human system when the formal process and the informal dynamics are not aligned.

The distinction that matters: consensus and commitment

Roger Fisher and William Ury's work in negotiation research introduced a distinction that is more useful in team settings than it is usually given credit for: the difference between agreement and commitment. A group can appear to agree on a decision while different members have entirely different understandings of what has been decided, different levels of investment in the outcome, and different private assessments of whether it will work.

The meeting ends with apparent consensus. What follows is not commitment. It is compliance from some, quiet resistance from others, and active re-litigation from a few. The leader is surprised, because they thought the decision had been made.

The problem is that consensus (the absence of visible objection) is often confused with commitment, which requires genuine buy-in from people who had real choices about whether to give it. Generating commitment is more effortful and more uncomfortable than generating consensus. It requires hearing the objections, engaging with them, and either incorporating them or explaining clearly why not. Most leaders short-circuit this process because it takes time they feel they do not have.

The role of the leader in the room

The leader's behaviour in decision meetings is the single most powerful variable in whether genuine commitment is generated. Leaders who signal what they think before inviting input get managed input. Leaders who invite genuine debate and then make the decision create a very different dynamic.

Research on groupthink (Irving Janis's original work, and the substantial literature that has followed it) consistently shows that the leader's expressed preference, even stated tentatively, significantly reduces the range of views that are subsequently expressed. This is not a failure of team members. It is a rational response to a status signal. If the leader has already decided, the cost of disagreeing is higher than the benefit of contributing.

This is one of the reasons that the most effective decision processes in complex organisations separate the role of generating options from the role of evaluating them, and keep the most senior voice out of the generation phase.

The question for this week

Think about a significant decision your senior team has made recently. How many people around that table genuinely committed to it - meaning they would advocate for it outside the room, support its implementation actively, and raise concerns directly rather than quietly? If the number is smaller than it appeared in the meeting, that gap is worth examining.

Issue 18: High-functioning teams that are not - the specific pattern of cohesion that looks like team performance but is actively preventing it.

If something in this issue resonated and you'd like to think it through in the context of your own organisation or leadership - a Chemistry Session is a free 30-minute conversation. No pitch, no obligation. Book here.

Dr Andrew A Walker | Chartered Psychologist | Leadership Coach | andrewantonywalker.com