In this video, we’ll talk about non-decision
making. Non-decision making occurs in group
decision making settings, some issues are diverted from the agenda and deliberation
so that a decision is not reached. The last
video is about indecision which refers to
a chronic pattern of having difficulty with
making decisions. By contrast, non-decision
making is an inadequate decision. It happens when powerful group members manipulate or
influence the decision-making process so that certain issues are not raised or pursued and
the relevant decisions are avoided.
Very often, the status-quo defenders are a
minority or elite group. Power is not only
used to make decisions, but also used to not
to make decisions. To prevent some issues from being raised in organizations, they resort
to many tactics to achieve the goal of non-decision making. First, the status-quo defenders acquire
people’s compliance through exercising and even abusing power. For example, if you don’t
want the sexual harassment victims to come forward, you threaten the victims that he
or she may lose their job or lose their credibility in the profession.
The second technique for non-decision making is called “death by discussion.” In meetings,
you use extensive discussion to distract people from an issue--until the issue is forgotten,
so a decision is not reached. For example,
you allow the debate on an issue to continue
for a long time until the group digresses
to talk about other issues. Because the time
allotted for the discussion of this issue
has expired, whoever presides the meeting
says, ‘Now let’s move to item number four
. . .’ and the group follows suit. . . . The
meeting concludes without a decision. This technique is called death by discussion.
The third technique for non-decision making is to take advantage of and even manipulate
institutional procedures for deliberate procrastination so that the decision does not enter the arena
of decision making. For example, you can have an investigation of the issue drag on for
a very long time. You can always justify it
by saying, “We need more data. We need to
more evidence.” The fourth technique for non-decision making
is to deliberately conceal information relevant to the issue. In HBO TV miniseries Chernobyl,
in a city council’s emergency meeting, an
elderly men said, “We seal off the city.
No one leaves. And cut the phone lines. Contain the spread of misinformation. That is how
we keep the people from undermining the fruits of their own labor.” Here the elderly men
not only attempts to conceal the information, but also labels the information as misinformation.
The fifth technique for non-decision making is to reinforce the barriers or create new
barriers to prevent an issue from entering
the arena of decision making. For example,
in order not to adopt a policy that you disagree with, you can require a unanimous vote, instead
of a majority vote. You can also use this
technique to stifle a debate even before the
debate starts.
A bill can die without anybody ever voting
on. Imagine you are a state senator and you
disagree with a bill, say HB 1234. You don’t want to vote against it, because your vote
will be on the record and it may add an unpredictable factor to your future career. The procedure
in the state senate is that the senate can
only hold a vote if two-thirds of the state
senators are present which is called a quorum. What would you do? You can kill the bill by
asking a group of senators not to show up for the vote. The bill dies because no quorum,
no vote.
Powerholders can use these tactics, singly or in combination, to prevent certain concerns,
unfairness in organizations, and complaints from developing into full-fledged issues which
calls for decision. There are other reasons that some issues don’t
end up on the group decision-making agenda. It can be that group members are frustrated
after repeated dismissal when the issues were brought up in the past. They believed it’d
be a futile effort of keeping doing so. It
won’t make a different this time, so it’s
a waste of time. It can also be accommodation. Instead of keeping
raising concerns and bringing the issues to the fore, people accept or adjust to the existing
situation. For example, teachers are overwhelmed by excessive paperwork as part of data collection
for record keeping and data-driven decision making. Instead of raising the issue for changes,
teachers blame themselves for mismanaging their own time.
In this video, we talked about non-decision making. It occurs in group decision making
settings, some issues are diverted from the agenda and deliberation so that a decision
is not reached.
Now it is time for you to provide an example of non-decision making and reflect on how
it influences decisions made by you or the
people around you.
