In a perfect world, leaders of organizations and businesses would like to have everyone to be on board and to support a particular decision, product or idea. But we don’t live in a perfect world, we live in the real world.
In the real world, hardly anyone agrees on anything. And when there are limited resources, i.e. time, money or qualified personnel, that’s especially true. Every person has his or her own ideas on how things should be done. Everyone’s ideas is usually impacted based on his or her perspective on a project or product decision.
For example, the accounting department will view a project primarily by how much a product or project will cost. Human Resources will view a project or product in terms of how many qualified people are available to complete the job. The Information Technology department may view a project or product based on the hardware, software and support needed to not only complete a project but maintain a product or project.
You’re never going to have one hundred percent support of any project, product or decision. Even when all the stakeholders support a decision, everyone has his or her own version.
So exactly what does unity mean?
- Putting your differences aside. Even if you disagree with HOW a project should be done, you support the project with by recommending helpful ideas and hammering out different versions of that idea(s). This typically should be done in a small group setting (no more than six key people).
- Supporting an idea or project regardless of your personal feelings. This is tough. But when making decisions in business, you have to think outside of yourself and think about what’s good for the company or team as a whole.
- Respecting others opinions or ideas. Many times we feel so strongly about our ideas and how it will the best for the company or ourselves we ignore other people’s ideas. When making a big decision, the more ideas the better. It’s good to have as many ideas or other peoples perspectives on a project as possible. Sometimes those ideas can save time and money.
- Respecting the decisions of the leader(s). We often get so caught up in what’s going in our department or our division we forget that the leader has to look at the big picture. He or she cannot make decisions based on YOUR department. They have to consider financial viability of the company not only now but in the future.
- Respecting the final decision. No decision is going to please everyone. Understand that any business decision has limitations based on money, time and other resource constraints. Many times the final decision may not be the best decision but it’s the best under the circumstances.
Unity is important in business but you cannot afford to wait for consensus. You have to decide what’s best for the business and get it done. People will be disappointed but as leaders, we have to look at the numbers and take the emotion of our decision making process to some degree. What may seem like a bad decision or unpopular decision often turn out to be great decisions down the road.
As always, I look forward to your input. Post your comments and replies to this article. I hope this article was helpful to you.
