Executive Overview It has been said that over half the decisions reached by teams never get carried out and of the rest only half should have been. Whether or not this old saw is accurate is not the point. Managers today are more than a little cynical when it comes to their participation in decision-making teams. While many feel compelled to sit through endless meeting, they frequently surrender-at least privately-by withholding any real effort. And by their own account, they "raise a white

more »

... " in over half the teams in which they participate. In this article, we will explore why this happens and offer ways to manage teams that will minimize the withholding of effort. " I... grabbed the photographic evidence showing the hot gas blow-by comparisons from previous flights and placed it on the table in view of the managers and somewhat angered, admonished them to look at the photos and not ignore what they were telling us: namely, that low temperature indeed caused significantly more hot gas blow-by to occur in the joints. I received cold stares ... with looks as if to say, 'Go away and don't bother us with the facts.' No one in management wanted to discuss the facts: they just would not respond verbally to...me. I felt totally helpless at that moment and that further argument was fruitless, so I, too, stopped pressing my case. Roger M Boisjoly, 1987 Most people instantly recognize the chilling recollection of Roger Boisjoly, the engineer who tried to halt the ill-fated Challenger flight in 1986. It was his testimony that caused the Presidential Commission to conclude that the disaster was the result of a "flawed decisionmaking process." While several flaws were identified, there was-one in particular that received scant attention during the hearings amid all the technical debates. If you read Boisjoly's testimony carefully, you find numerous statements about a decision-making climate that discouraged full expression of concerns. It was this climate that led several team members at various points in the processand eventually Boisjoly-to cease any further attempts to alter the course of the final decision. Thankfully, disasters of the Challenger's magnitude are fairly rare. Yet for many managers, dramas such as this are played out in the corporate world over and over again on a much smaller scale. The space shuttle disaster should serve to remind us that the ability to manage decisionmaking teams is a critical managerial skill, and that maintaining a productive decision-making climate is difficult and challenging.