Benefits of Minority Reports Communication

Michael Alexis, Owner and CEO at Teambuilding.com

Recently I read of a leader talking about the use of minority reports within his organization. Specifically he said, “This allows the voice of those whose ideas were not incorporated into the majority decision to be heard by decision-makers who are often not part of the team making the recommendation."

I thought, how many internal organizational problems might be prevented or at least alleviated if the use of minority reports was more common? This inspired curiosity: which other leaders also recognized the value of this type of interaction as a communication vehicle and show of respect with their people, that otherwise might be voiceless and feel disenfranchised.

“As a former lawyer, I'm very familiar with minority reports, or as we usually referred to them: dissenting opinions,” says Michael Alexis, owner and CEO of TeamBuilding. “In a legal context, these written perspectives are incredibly valuable for understanding the other side of rationales and decision-making.”

Alexis has implemented a form of this type of thinking and process into business.

“And so I've learned to use a similar, albeit simplified version of minority reports in our organizational decision making. For example, we have a policy of disagree and commit, which makes sure that our leadership team is aligned on implementation, even if we don't agree with how we got there,” he says.

“We recently introduced a more robust parental leave policy for our 100+ employees. As part of the policy's creation, we weigh pros and cons, as well as factors like duration of time, amount of pay and so on,” he explains. “In the end, we didn't have unanimous agreement on all of the details, but we had enough to commit and move forward. We also made note of the dissenting opinions and rationales offered in favor of other outcomes. These notes give us an objective tool and framework to measure the success of our program.”

He went deeper into the details about this one particular policy to explain how the process is conducted and why it’s useful.

“Even though some team members advocated for a past the post system, we decided to go with accrued time off so that newer team members could benefit too. As we gather more data about this program, we can compare what we did, to what we considered as alternatives, and adjust as needed. There are at least dozens of other examples each year, for which we use minority reports to hold us accountable and objective.”

The obvious value that people who disagree might think with minority reports or disagree-and-commit approaches is feeling important enough to be allowed to communicate, heard and understood. In other words, they might be shown they matter to some greater degree.

Alexis says disagree and commit was a natural evolution from leadership conversations.

“We realized that we needed to have a united front with our staff, but also that we did not always have unanimous agreement. So, in order to move forward, we had to disagree privately and commit publicly,” he says. “We were working with an executive coach at the time, and are also avid readers of business strategy books, so it’s possible that a similar concept was shared with us, and we adapted it for our specific use cases.”

The importance of the process of giving the floor to dissenting viewpoints and mindsets is clear to him and his leadership team.

“Minority reports provide a compromise where even though the final decision is made in line with majority perspective, the minority still has a recognized voice. Amongst your leadership team, or whoever is participating in decision-making, this process makes it clear that all perspectives are valued and that it isn’t just the big boss steamrolling over everyone else’s opinions and values,” Alexis says, adding, “That clarity is essentially for keeping morale high over the long term.”

One additional benefit has been learned when adjustments or corrections need to be made in response to the original commitment.

“As for guidance, there are very few decisions we make at TeamBuilding that are permanently set in stone. Minority reports give us a decision framework to return to if the path we chose turns out to not be the best one. For example, if we implement a new policy based on majority decision, and it turns out to not be the right fit for our staff, then we can return to the minority report and consider that path instead,” he says.

The standard of having a minority report may not impress that “minority” if they are not confident their knowledge, experience, intellect, points and opinions are sincerely, legitimately being valued and considered. If that happens, any communication about the process might seem like deception. Once trust is broken, it can be painfully difficult to overcome.

“With any individual decision, it can appear that you are not taking into account differing perspectives,” Alexis says. “Even if you say all of the varying points out loud and discuss how you weighed them, it can still appear as just lip service if you are making a decision that ultimately aligns with your own perspective.”

This concern and risk can be addressed, he says.

“The most effective way to make sure your team knows you are considering their perspectives is to think about decision-making across multiple contact points. Sometimes you can — and should — make decisions that are against your own perspective or preference,” Alexis has found.

“Recently at TeamBuilding, I chose to disagree and commit over the decision to bring back a specific event type for the holiday season. The event type comes with a numerous challenges that are not in line with my overall preference of running a streamlined organization. However, my team rightly pointed out that by overcoming these challenges in the short term, we can achieve more growth and then return to streamlining after. Neither perspective is 100% right or wrong, we are just balancing values — and in this case by moving forward with the plan showed me team that their decision making input is important,” he says.

Getting emotional and verbal buy-in for the necessary “commit” part of the ideal can be challenging. The more relationship trust and practice of the process helps aid that task.

“Most of our managers have been with us for years, and so earning the emotional and professional buy-in has been the result of many thousands of interactions,” Alexis says. “Perhaps the number one factor is that your team needs to believe that you have their best interests at heart, even when a decision might seem in conflict with that.”

The results have helped prevent or lessen common problems that many organizations face and endure.

“Disagree and commit allows us to quickly make decisions instead of getting stuck debating the minutia of any given one. In a way, this framework has fueled a large part of out growth to serve tens of thousands of customers, employees and hundreds of people,” Alexis says.

Welcomed byproducts have arisen from the use of the standard and process, he says.

“One of the most unexpected benefits of using this process is the overall sense of peace I feel with it and our company. I think even more the alpha-type decision-makers that steamroll everyone, there is some anxiety in doing so: Did you really consider the perspectives needed to make the best decision?” Alexis says.

This commitment and its practice provides safeguards and an easier, smarter path to adjustments and replacement decisions, if needed.

“With disagree and commit and minority reports I’m confident that we’ve considered the major angles of any given decision. Even when that decision turns out to not be the best one, at least we had a framework and process that we reached it with,” Alexis says. “From there, everything can be tweaked and optimized.”