Should You Commit to a Bad Team Decision?
January 3, 2018
“But Jim, I completely disagree with the decision. How can you expect me to support John’s decision and commit to it when I think it’s wrong?”
“Tom”, I replied, “I’m not asking you to agree with John. I’m asking you to do the greater good – to be unified as a leadership team in all the decisions that are communicated to others. Especially the ones we don’t all agree on.”
I hadn’t quite won Tom over. Julia noticed, and jumped in.
You need team conflict to have a healthy team. Yes, you read that right. (Actually, 
Most companies end up structured in a way that is very unintentional. Recently I told a new client that many companies end up with an organizational structure that looks much more like a platypus than the stallion your company needs. They got a chuckle out of this. I soon learned that the nervous laughter was because they had created a very haphazard, platypus-like structure and they knew they had work to do.
Let me ask the leaders a couple questions. Do you find yourself clearly stating what needs to be done in your team? When a team member has an issue, do you tell them the best way to fix their issue? If you are working through a performance concern with a staff member, do you make sure you make the perfect plan to remedy their situation? Sounds like a pretty good description of a nice manager. Unfortunately this “nice” manager isn’t all that effective.