If you read our recent blog post on the sacking of Chelsea football manager, Luis Felipe Scolari, we give you some of our views on the Chelsea owner Roman Abramovitch. Clearly Mr Abramovitch is in command. It’s his club and he does what he likes…

One management thinker who was required reading on my management science degree was Victor Vroom. Vroom is a very high level thinker and to be honest, much of his stuff is so high level academia that it is not practical.

Anyway, bearing the football story in mind, Vroom’s models of decision making are useful to know.

The following is taken from his book “Leadership and decision making” and shows the levels of decision making.

Authority decision

A1 decision – Made by the manager alone. Without involving others using information available at that time.

A2 decision – Made by the manager but with information available from subordinates and workers

Consultative Decisions

C1 decision – Made by the manager after obtaining advice from others (subtle difference from A2 above)

C2 decision – Decision made by the manager after inviting suggestions from selected others.

C3 decision – Decisions made by group consensus.

All decisions welcome

Obviously, there is a place for all categories of decisions. For example, A1 would be most likely used in cases on imminent and severe
breaches of health & safety procedure and sinking down to C3 would be something non descript, like who can leave 10 minutes early on Friday afternoon.

The point is that good management will select where on the decision scale, the decision needs to be taken. Clearly Mr Abramovitch takes most decisions at A1 level.

How does this help us?

To take authority decisions, the decision taker must have… authority. Trying to take decisions on an A level without authority (either real or perceived) is a good way to get peoples back up…

Be aware of the decisions that you take in a day and rate them on the A1/2 or C1/3 scale and ask yourself if this was the right place for them…

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