The Decision Making Table

Increasing the level of women’s leadership, in particular at the decision-making table, is what leads to empowerment.

- Marle Festa, CEO, Chief Executive Women

All leadership is about good decision making.

Observing others’ decision making - good and bad - is a valuable apprenticeship.

Do they step back? Do they define the issue in relationship to the widget? Do they assess the information? Do they give others’ affected by the decision a hearing? Do they check for bias?

Hard to do all or any of that in a meeting.

That’s why decisions - good ones - are not made in meetings.

That’s okay. Meetings - the ones held around tables - are Performances.

That long boardroom table? A catwalk for the power participants to preen and flex and strut and sashay - and display their plumage to remind us who is in charge: them. (Which is why they invite representatives of the powerless: as witnesses to go forth with stories of the powerful.) The longer the table the more impressive the meeting.

The payoff for the powerless messengers is they get to assert their decision making authority with ‘I was at the meeting…’. And plan for their time on the catwalk.

An invitation to the Decision Making Table ritual is certainly symbolic.

In the meantime, in the Internet Age, you and I can make good decisions anywhere.

It’s just geography.