Consultation and Leadership
Question 13: Are you achieving the right balance of consultation & leadership?
Good Practice: During all stages of the project, there should be widespread consultation with many parties. However, the project should ultimately be controlled by a small, dedicated 'core' project team, which is focused on achieving a concrete result. This will ensure that when difficult decisions have to be made, they are made clearly, forcefully and quickly. Engage in lots of consultation, but do not have too much democracy. If you want to achieve a real business result in a realistic timeframe, a small team operating on Stalinist principles is more likely to succeed than large committees acting as talking shops. This is particularly important for regional, cross regional and global projects.
Common Mistakes
- Making a decision and then starting a debate.
- Not getting a real agreement, and then having to revisit the issue.
- Failing to remain goal focussed.
Notes: "The Romans did not build an empire by having meetings. They did it by killing all those who opposed them."
Questions 14 to 17 should be addressed during the Design and Development stages of the project.
