Leitmotif
I decide, but I ask others first.
A consultative individual decision is a decision made by one person alone, but who has previously consulted with others (usually those affected by the decision and/or those with particular expertise). The opinions, advice, recommendations, tips, feelings, etc. of others should be heard and considered, but they do not have to be taken into account or even “integrated”. The decision lies with the individual person.
Examples:
- I am going on vacation from … to …
- Do you like the design?
- Do you think I should make any changes to the photo protocol?
- I’m quitting my job!
This method has become very well known thanks to the book “Reinventing Organizations” by Frederic Laloux. In it, he describes how the company AES has named it a “consulting process” [Laloux2015:99] (see also the wiki ).
In Teal organizations, it is the standard way of making decisions, because everyone is authorized to make all the decisions they need for their job/role, as long as they
- all persons who are significantly affected, and
- People with specialist knowledge in this area,
has consulted.
It is interesting to note that in the above-mentioned wiki, “Decision Making” is classified under “Daily organizational practices”. This suggests that the focus here is on “small”, operational decisions. In contrast, “systemic consensus” is used in organizational methods such as S3 and Holacracy for “larger”, structural changes (e.g. changes to the decision-making mechanism itself or organizational structure issues), where (serious) objections need to be integrated. This is effectively a group decision that aims to reach a consensus. This is taken into account in our concept in methods 3-5 (see also KonsenT vs KonsenS).
References
[Laloux2015] Laloux, Frederic: “Reinventing Organizations”, Vahlen, 2015, ISBN 978 3 8006 4913 6