Why does it matter?

As a manager you want to get people on your team to state a decision rather than just nodding and going along with whatever is happening. If they can state a position, you can start to get the information you need to help develop their sense for making decision in the best interest of your team and the company at large. Aside from that, you can also learn what other information they need in order to commit to a decision (even if they don’t necessarily agree).

Why do they have to say it out loud?

As a manager, if you can encourage your ICs to state their opinions, it will make your life so much easier. When all the ICs state what they think a decision should be, you can quickly see who understands the connection between a decision and the intended outcome for the company, you know who needs additional information to commit to a decision, and your team will develop better decision making skills overall. Active commitment is a fantastic tool for training future leaders in a company.

Who needs more information?

As a manager, you will have access to information that your ICs don’t. A decision that feels clear to you might feel unclear or even completely wrong to someone on your team. As you work on active commitment with your team, you’ll start to discover how often disagreements stem from a lack of context. With a strong practice of active commitment on your team, you’ll be able to provide enough information for ICs to commit to a decision, even if they don’t necessarily agree.

For example, my team is typically tasked with research projects. We started a new research task that we estimated would take an afternoon. The next day we would take our research and reach a decision on how to proceed.

Later that day, I had a meeting with a few other managers where we discussed our short term priorities. One of the managers realized that our research task would enable something their team was working on, but to fully take advantage of the research, they’d like 1 additional criterion added to the research task. We agreed, based on the fact that the other team’s task was a higher priority and they did not have the subject matter expertise and capacity to answer the outstanding questions in the research task.

I went back to my team and let them know that we would be adding 1 more requirement to the research task. At this point we had not practiced active commitment, but we had built a strong foundation of psychological safety. The team very respectfully brought up their concerns. The additional requirement would make the research task significantly longer. With the context they had, it was more work for no benefit to our team, and a delay to the start of tangible progress on our project.

Of course it would seem that way based on the information I had given them. I could definitely see where they were coming from. I explained that although it would slow down our progress, it would enable another team to solve a bigger and more time sensitive issue. We would still get the information we need to reach our decision, and although it would take longer, we would be unblocking work for an additional team. With the additional context, the team was able to commit to the change, even though they knew it would mean a more difficult task.

Who understands the connection?

While you’re working on active commitment in your 1:1s, you’ll start to discover who on your team has a talent for seeing the bigger picture. This is an important skill to identify as part of professional development. As an IC develops the skill of seeing the forest through the trees, they will be able to make better recommendations for a course of action, or even assist you in selling other team members on the benefits of a given decision.

ICs that develop this skill are showing that they can work on higher level problems, with a higher level of autonomy, and with strong alignment to company strategic priorities and values. Active commitment leads to strategic thinking, a valuable skill in future leaders at the company.

You can encourage this behaviour by asking the IC to explain their thinking in meetings. The IC may also take this opportunity to develop mentorship skills by encouraging active commitment with other ICs.