2. International meetings: decision-making in different cultures

6. Read what four people said about the decision-making process in their organisations and answer these questions.

• What do you see as the main advantages and disadvantages of each decision-making style?

• Which of the decision-making styles is most similar to the one in your meetings at work?

• What kind of decision-making style do you personally prefer? Why?

1. In my department, meetings are very focused around taking decisions. The culture of my organisation is all about speed. So this means no meeting is scheduled for more than 30 minutes and we always have a decision before we finish.

2. Most of my meetings are by telephone with people all around the world. There’s usually not much discussion between the participants. It’s just one-way communication from the boss telling us about decisions he has already taken.

3. I work in research and development. People in our meetings love complex arguments. They always take their time to make a decision but once a decision is taken then they follow it.

4. The culture in this organisation is very informal. Where I work the most important meetings are the one-to-one meetings in the corridor or around the coffee machine. Sometimes it’s good to network and get informal agreement about things over a coffee like this before the formal meetings.

6. Listen to the opening of a meeting about product development. audiofile: Exercise 3.7.mp3

1. What two things does the project leader say she wants to clarify at the start?

2. Which two decisions does she want to take?

3. She says she doesn’t want a ‘big discussion’. Why not? What is proposed instead?

4. The designer wants to ‘slow down’ the decision-making process. Why?

Tapescript audiofile: Exercise 3.7.mp3

Project leader: OK, shall we get started? I think, to begin our meeting today, as I’ve discussed with some of you by phone, I’d just like to take a minute or so to clarify one or two things: firstly, what we’re trying to achieve, you know, what decision we want to take, and, secondly, agree how we want to take it. I mean, the reason I say this, I think we all agree that we had a bit of a misunderstanding at the last meeting which wasted quite a lot of time. As I said, I’ve talked to a few of you on the phone about this. So, what we’re looking to take away today is a couple of decisions.

I put this on the flip chart... that’s a final decision on the product design, so that we don’t spend any more time on development, and also a decision on the final launch date so that we can begin thinking about the sales side of things. And for that you need to hear from me what we really need and I need to hear what’s realistic from your side and balance things up. In terms of process, I don’t really want to go into a big discussion again about the design concept again ... no ... exactly ... we don’t have a massive amount of time and, you know, we’ve already discussed this a lot in the past. I think it would be useful for you if I simply list what I like and don’t like and then it’s easier for you to tell me where you can produce some quick fixes. OK? How does that sound from the design side?

Designer: Yeah, firstly, thanks for that. Yeah, I’m happy with that. I understand what you’re saying. I think we can get to a decision today but, I agree, we may need to slow down a little bit, just to be sure, you need to be sure it’s the right decision. As I keep saying, once the design is finalised and we hand over to prototype production, it’s very difficult to go back to the design phase again. Very expensive. So, I would just say, don’t get stressed if I push back a few times with questions. I’m not being negative here. I just want you to be sure that you take the right decision, a decision which you can really go forward with.

Project leader: OK, that’s good. So, we agree we should be able to decide on product design. And maybe we should have thirty minutes with a strong question-and-answer session where you can push a little, just to check I’m not missing anything ... that I really know what I’m doing ...

Designer: That’s good. OK, so, to start, you wanted to do a quick review of where we stood with things and give some feedback on….

6. The project leader uses a five-stage process to confirm which decisions to take and how to take them. Listen to Exercise 3.7.mp3 again and underline the phrases she uses to manage each stage.

1. Say what you want to define

2. Say which decision needs to be taken

3. Say how the decision should be taken

4. Check with other participants and negotiate if necessary

5. Confirm the decision-making process

What other phrases could you use to say the same thing?