Conquering A Culture of Indecision

The single greatest cause of corporate underperformance is the failure to execute. According to author Ram Charan, such failures usually result from misfires in personal interactions. And these faulty interactions rarely occur in isolation. More often than not, they’re typical of the way large and small decisions are made (or not made) through an organization. 

The inability to take decisive action is rooted in a company’s culture. Leaders create this culture of indecisiveness, Charan says – and they can break it by doing three things: First, they must engender intellectual honesty in the connections between people. 

Second, they must see to it that the organization’s social operating mechanisms – the meetings, reviews and other situations through which people in the corporation transact business – have honest dialogue at their cores. 

And third, leaders must ensure that feedback and follow through are used to reward high achievers, coach those who are struggling, and discourage those whose behaviors are blocking the organization’s progress. 

By taking these three approaches and using every encounter as an opportunity to model open and honest dialogue, leaders can set the tone for an organization, moving it from paralysis to action.