We are all growing and learning as professionals in a collaborative workspace. It can be helpful to take a step back and look at different models of individual and team behavior. A “mental model minute” takes just a moment to describe a different view on how to perform or interact better that we can react to and learn from. I will post these from time to time. If you know of mental models that have helped you, post!

One of the hardest things to navigate in a collaborative workplace is whose decision something is. This is where the “Seven Levels of Authority” from Management 3.0 by Jugen Appelo model comes in handy. His model is about authority definitions between a manager and their team. I have found it useful between individuals or across teams as long as you clearly define who is playing each role.

The Model

Too often in decision making we think it’s “your decision” or “my decision”. However, actual decision-making authority is way more nuanced than that.

At one end of the model, the decision is 100% “mine”. E.g. as the manager, I am telling you what we are doing. I have most often seen this level arise (in healthy organizations) in situations where information is highly protected such as a firing decision or where risk is high such as PCI compliance.

On the other end, the decision is 100% “yours”. E.g. as the team, the manager has delegated the decision and has no need to be further involved. I have most often seen this in implementation details or technical details from a non-technical manager/product owner.

In the middle of the model is “Agree”. In other words, the decision is made jointly between the parties. The biggest risk with “agree” decisions is they don’t ever actually get made. To mitigate that it is helpful to put an artificial process like dot voting or a timebox in place.

Most decisions fall on one side of this or the other.

With “Sell” and “Inquire” the decision is made by one party but the other party wants to be informed after the fact. With “Consult” and “Advise” the decision is made by party with the other party giving input before the decision is made. In all these cases, a party has the clear decision-making authority. For example, in “Consult” the decision is made by manager with input from the team beforehand. An example of this may be hiring decisions. With “Advise” decision it is often important for the manager role to publicly support the decision after the fact for the team to feel like they are actually allowed to make the decision until norms are established.

How to Use it

The other night, my husband’s phone died. He went out and bought a new one. I asked him how much he spent on it, and he deflected the question. I got angry at him and he was upset with me. Why? We had talked about how a phone is critical for both his home and work life. Whereas I can run with something barely functioning for a surprisingly long time, he spends 80% of his work time on the phone. His phone had ceased to function as a phone. We had talked about how it was urgent he get the phone replaced. We even agreed I would single parent bedtime so he could get to the store before it closed. So why was I upset? Because it was not a simple “his decision”. In this case, think of me as the manager (yay marriage). He thought this was a level 7. I had fully delegated the decision to him. I thought it was a 5 or 6. I wanted to hear about the decision after the fact and the details. In a 20-year relationship, we can be dialed into the difference between a 6 and a 7. In most work situations that level of detail isn’t necessary. But knowing where that difference in expectation arises allows you to adjust for the next time.

In my last gig, I had a business partner who was going to use the app my team was developing. We would have discussions about the requirements of how the application would make her life better. At various points when trying to decide how something was going to work, I would be very up front with her about who got to make that decision. “That is a technical implementation decision. So I can go talk to the team about options, but we may be limited here” when we were more at the 5/6 area. When we are more at a 2/3 I would say “We can make that happen for you. Here are the trade offs but it is ultimately your decision as the user.” It helped give her clarity on where we were in the project and what the outcomes would be.

I have a friend who uses this technique at work. When she is describing a course of action she is planning on going down, she will end it with “but my boss can always tell me I have other priorities or to do it differently”. Her boss is always in the room in these situations.