The Room Where It Happened
No one else was in
The room where it happened
The room where it happened
The room where it happened
No one else was in
The room where it happened (The room where it happened)
The room where it happened
The room where it happened (The room where it happened)
No one really knows how the game is played (Game is played)
The art of the trade
How the sausage gets made (How the sausage gets made)
We just assume that it happens (Assume that it happens)
But no one else is in
The room where it happens. (The room where it happens.)
- The Room Where It Happens, Hamilton
Many decisions are made in organisations by people who have only two qualifications more than anyone else in the world:
They are higher up the organisation’s wire diagram, or
They were invited to meetings that others weren’t.
Often the first is the result of the second, and the second because of the first.
I wonder if we grabbed a random selection of people at the local supermarket and put them in the same room and gave them the same positional authority, how they would fare in comparison.
In 2023, we shouldn’t be limiting decisions based on the technology of the speed of the stagecoach, the reliability of a speakerphone, the seating capacity of a boardroom, or the availability of certain people to come together at a set time.
And yet we do. Routinely.
It’s arrogant and dumb to act as if the only wisdom available to an organisation is those who fit into a room.
And yet we do. Routinely.
Need a policy to support 5,000 employee decision makers? You can do what organisations have done since the century before last. Give a dozen experts desks in a building. Task them to draft, refine, approve and publish a policy. Go through the motions of a ‘change management’ process to sell it to the other 4,988 employees. Hold lots of meetings in rooms to explain the policy to rows of folded arms. Schedule a policy review every two years. Tick. Change Management.
As if the Internet was never invented.
In 2023 and beyond, we have had the technology for years to invite every person in our organisation to the table. We can draft a policy old-school style, publish it on any number of enterprise platforms, invite staff to amend or comment, add the changes (or not) and have the boss sign off.
(Expect little to no engagement the first, second, or tenth time you do this. Employees are unused to genuine participation in decision making. They haven’t pumped out any decision making muscle reps so will rightly be wary. You’ve spent years training them to be passive consumers and complainers)
The boss can invite the users to submit more improvements to the policy once they’ve taken it for a test drive. Those suggestions can also be published, and further comments invited, and the policy incrementally refined to an operational sharpness and practicality that the traditional handful of experts in a room would never achieve.
What a simple way to gain authentic ownership beyond the rote change management script. What a practical demonstration of trust and respect in the workers and operational decision makers beyond the ‘people are our most important resource’ slogans.
All organisations exist to amplify human achievement.
Let’s stop using a cardboard megaphone.