Decision making & the collaboration continuum
When my colleagues and I create a developmental assessment, we make a deep (and never-ending) study of how the skills and knowledge targeted by that assessment develop over time. The research involves identifying key concepts and skills and studying their evolution on the Lectical Scale (our developmental scale). The collaboration continuum has emerged from this research.
Many people seem to think of decision making as either top-down or collaborative, and tend to prefer one over the other. But several thousand decision-making leaders have taught us that this is a false dichotomy. From them, we’ve learned two things. First, there is no clear-cut division between autocratic and collaborative decision making—it’s more of a continuum. And second, both more autocratic and more collaborative decision-making processes have legitimate applications.
As it applies to decision making, the collaboration continuum is a scale that runs from fully autocratic to consensus-based. We find it helpful to divide the continuum into 7 relatively distinct levels, as shown below:
As the table above shows, all 7 forms of decision making on the collaboration continuum have legitimate applications. And all can be learned in any adult developmental level. However, the most effective application of each successive form of decision making requires more developed skills. Inclusive, consent, and consensus decision making are particularly demanding, and generally require formal training for all participating parties.
The most developmentally advanced and accomplished leaders who have taken our assessments deftly employ all 7 forms of decision making, basing the form chosen for a particular situation on factors like timeline, decision purpose, and stakeholder characteristics, including the quality of their collaborative skills.
Collaborative decision-making VCoL
It’s a good idea to begin work on any new skill with an awareness VCoL. Awareness VCoL’s are the best place to begin, because they make opportunities for practice more visible. This is important because people are unlikely to practice a skill if they’re unable to quickly identify opportunities for practice.
The blend of awareness and judgment in the following micro-VCoL will deepen your understanding of the collaboration continuum and how you can put it to work in the real world.
