Collaborative Stances and Shared Vision

A framework for feedback and shared decision making

Feedback comes in lots of flavors, and decisions get made with varying degrees of input from the group. This tool, which was called a model for shared vision in Peter Senge’s 5th Discipline Fieldbook, some call it simply “Senge’s Ladder”, but it might be best described as “Collaborative Stances”.

Telling, Selling, Testing, Consulting, and Co-creating represent the five stances, as represented by a ladder with telling on the bottom left all the way up to co-creation on the top right. Collaboration, as well as input from the group or team, increases moving to the right while speed of decisions (in the short-term at least) decreases. It's crucial for a leader to build trust with the team over time, and one way to do that is to clarify the kind of feedback they're seeking from their team. This framework provides aids in communicating everything from “it’s my way or the highway” to “I trust the team to figure it out together” and prevents the unnecessary frustration of providing or receiving feedback where it is unwanted or not going to be considered.

With Telling, a leader makes a decisive and authoritative decision without negotiating. This method is effective when quick action is required, especially in early-stage startups with numerous decisions to be made. Here, a leader might prioritize and expedite certain processes by making some decisions independently and save the most important questions for group discussions, but this requires a skillful leader and clear expectation to do it without breaking the group’s trust. It might also be appropriate in cases of chaos where the right action is the one that stabilizes the system the fastest, under extreme uncertainty or other dire “war time” circumstances.

Selling similar to Telling in that no feedback is desired from the team, but here the leader wants the team's “buy-in” for the decision. The objective is to get everyone on board without room for changes or negotiation. Leaders who prefer this method are good at charming their teams or making persuasive arguments for their decisions. This stance is most effective when the leader has significant knowledge or experience about the decision to be made, or when circumstances dictate little choice. I once watched a skilled CEO share with the team, “We’re here today to discuss a decision that has already been made.” The company had recently been bought by a private equity fund, and while there wasn’t any choice left for the team around the table, the leader wanted everyone to have their time to process and discuss the outcome together.

Testing starts to leverage the wisdom of the team around the table. Here the leader seeks the team's input on improving an already developed idea and invites feedback for enhancing what's existing. The overall direction is mostly set, but the team is invited to add, subtract and modify for improvements. A leader might ask in this stance, “What’s missing?” and “What did I get wrong?” and “How can we make this better?” This stance is helpful when a team is new and unsure of how safe it is to provide feedback (not every workplace is) or where a leader has a clear idea but will need the team to feel ownership, make it their own and execute the vision.

The Consulting stance is used when the leader has an outline or maybe just the boundaries in mind, but wants the team to really shape the outcome. Unlike the Testing stance, which focuses on refining a first draft, Consulting involves the team taking the lead, with guidance as needed. One founder calls it, “teaching from the back of the classroom.” This stance is useful when the leader has a broad goal in mind, but the team's expertise is needed for a more nuanced decision-making process. This stance also relies on high-trust built by collaborating at other steps on the ladder. Teams don’t start with this capacity, they build it over time with capable leaders at the help that set the stage for working well together meeting after meeting.

Last and most skillful is Co-creating, in which the team starts from scratch to reach a decision. It requires a high degree of trust as the leader is an equal partner with the group, choosing not to veto the ultimate decision. It also requires a secure leader who doesn't feel the need to have all the answers. It's ideal for leaders who are highly skilled with an equally skillful, high-trust team or one that can employ an outside facilitator for a more balanced decision-making process. It may be the most time-consuming stance in the short-run, as it requires generating and refining ideas from scratch, but for the leader who is becoming a bottleneck as the source of all decision-making, this is the source of ultimate liberation, when the team truly owns the results.