Title: Who Really Makes the Big Decisions in Your Company?
Headings: Who Really Makes the Big Decisions in Your Company?
Decision making
Who Really Makes the Big Decisions in Your Company?
The Unnamed Decision Makers
Acknowledge that the nameless decision-making teams exist, and ask how you can make more deliberate use of them.
Why Senior Teams Don’t Make the Big Decisions
The Virtues of the Kitchen Cabinet
Building a Better Kitchen Cabinet
The kitchen cabinet frees the CEO from the tyranny of the org chart.
Small groups are much better than large groups at considering critical decisions.
The kitchen cabinet’s small size and its composition foster candor and discretion.
Cabinet membership isn’t fixed, so CEOs can get precisely the counsel they need when they need it.
The group has no name, so people can’t easily lobby to be included.
A Better Use of the Top Team’s Time
Establish a common worldview as the basis for decision making.
Broadly prioritize initiatives.
Allocate resources and manage dependencies.
Attitude Adjustment for the Senior Management Team
Having regular dialogue about the senior team’s worldview is one hallmark of a strategically well-managed business.

Content: But because the boss participates in a discussion whose final outcome is within a range of possibilities that he finds acceptable, he never actually relinquishes his decision-making authority. Therefore, it’s something of an illusion that the executive committee makes many of the top decisions. But it could hardly be otherwise, for some fairly straightforward reasons. First, organizational accountability for making important decisions virtually always rests with individuals, not teams. I can’t think of a single case when an executive has been put in charge of a division or function and her boss has said, “Jill, I want you and your team to make good decisions together to run the business well. And I’m holding the entire group accountable for the outcome.” It’s no different at the top. Ajay Banga, CEO of MasterCard, is typical of the CEOs I’ve interviewed. He says, “The collective brains of the group and their diverse set of experiences add enormous value, but the CEO has to make the decisions and live with them.” What’s more, teams in general are unwieldy vehicles for rapidly making difficult decisions.