1. AUA Manchester 2012
Session no 402
Decisions, Decisions: How to Make
Effective Group Decisions.
James Craig
Faculty Accountant
The University of Leeds

2. Terminology
Group? Board/ Committee
Private Sector
Chairman/ Madam Chairman
Chair
NED (Non-Executive Director) – or
equivalent in your area

3. Basic Prerequisites (1)
Written rules: procedures/
membership details/ standing
orders/ terms of reference/
Include NED involvement etc

4. Basic Prerequisites (2)
• Clear, simple committee structures
• Clarity concerning decisions; eg
Delegated decision
Recommendation (to whom?)
Majority required?

5. Basic Prerequisites (3)
• A risk register – updated at the end of every
meeting:
– Identify the risks
– Evaluate the likelihood of the risk happening
– Who’s the risk owner?
– What remedial action should be taken?
– Timescale?

6. Basic Prerequisites (4)
• Equality and Diversity Policy
• How work towards adequate gender mix
particularly, but also take into account all
equality and diversity issues?

7. More on the gender Imbalance
• More women badly needed, particularly at
Board level
• Perpetuation of male dominance: ex-officio
membership/ senior positions.
• How encourage women to be nominated for
election? Cultural issues (HE as a whole)

8. Basic prerequisites (5) – more radical?
• Reports up to two sides of A4 with one clear
recommendation at the end, every time.
• Appendices as necessary (out of main body of
report).
• No reports from other cttees or minutes
attached (taken as read; waste of paper: refer
to on intranet/ ‘restricted’ drive etc).
• Minutes: always succinct; past tense; self-
contained

9. Roles – clearly define:
Chairman
Leader
Secretary
Members
NEDs

10. The Chairman
Deep inside knowledge
Directs the meeting
Keeps to the point; keeps time throughout
Firm and fair with outspoken people
Encourages contributions from quieter members
Summarises the main points
Makes the decision clear with direct reference to the
written recommendation at the foot of p2 of the
report (see above)

11. The Leader
• Why should the ‘leader’ necessarily be the
Chairman?
• Leadership qualities (concurrent with
academic success?)
• Integrity; conviction; humour; builds trust and
respect; fantastic listener; transparency;
weighs up all sides of an argument and makes
a clear decision.

12. The Secretary
• Secretary a crucial role
• Knows the business (better perhaps than the
Chairman)
• Prompts/ guides/ information at fingertips
• NEDs: introductory days etc. Guided tour

13. A ‘Strong Culture’
David Smith: ‘Asda Magic’
Seven principles of a high-performing
culture
Principle 2: Communicate/
communicate/ communicate
Principle 3: Listening
‘Permafrost layer’

14. Strategy and Mission Statement
Do you know your Institution’s strategy, vision
and and mission statement?
To what extent do you feel these currently
underpin your decision-making?
What share do you, as an administrator, have in
academic decision-making?

15. Keeping it fresh
Stability and culture
Critical mass
Evolutionary membership
NEDs at and below Board level
(penetrate the permafrost layer)
15th Sept 2008

16. ‘Getting to know’ Events (1)
Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) Exercise
Hire a practitioner for a day!
• Attitudes: Extroversion/ Introversion (E-I)
• Perceiving: Sensing/ Intuition (S-N)
• Decision-Making: Thinking/ Feeling (T-F)
• Lifestyle: Judging/ Perception (J-P)

17. ‘Getting to Know’ Events (2)
Two-day annual strategy meeting, with
dinner, drinks, NEDs and overnight stay away
from work.
Board Day (physical boards!) Three x 3m boards
along a wall with green and red marker pens:
quarterly planning meetings.
No chairs: standing only (Asda) – meetings over
within half an hour.

18. Leadership vs Consensus
Leadership qualities again
‘The enemy within’
Gather views (Asda)
Beware of consensus (‘Groupthink’)
Divisions/ vigorous debate can be helpful
The Abilene Paradox (JB Harvey, 1974)
Compromise

19. Practical Measures
What practical measures could you bring to bear
within your circle of influence, to improve
decision-making?

20. Delegates’ Contributions (1)
• Perception of the contribution of academic-related staff at meetings, vis-à-vis
academic staff
• The sector varies considerably (one delegate had worked at three universities
which were all very different)
• Academic-related staff much valued in terms of their contribution at one
Institution represented: more so, it was felt, than the academic staff!
• Academic staff tend to value the support of administrative staff in helping students
in particular.

21. Delegates’ Contributions (2)
• Role of the secretary
• Being one step ahead of the game by knowing what might be going through
people’s minds: ‘I know what you might be thinking, but…..’. So have a suitable
reaction ready; know the appropriate thing to say at the appropriate time.
• Have pre-meetings to resolve difficult issues, before running into the danger of
wasting valuable time at the main meetings. Discuss what is contentious
beforehand; bring the parties together.
• Bring separate groups with established views, ‘on side’

22. Delegates’ Contributions (3)
• On leadership
• Strong leaders engender the trust of those the teams they lead. This trust can take
time to nurture, and to some it doesn’t come at all.
• The least effective leaders are those who make decisions and give
commands, without listening to and getting to know their team members.
• One delegate commented on a very positive experience she had in
Victoria, Australia, where a particular charismatic leader spent a considerable
amount of time getting to know his staff at all levels: talking to them regularly in
their places of work and getting to know the business inside out. Such leaders
tend to make the best decisions.

23. Delegates’ Contributions (4)
• On Chair/ Chairman
• Which is most appropriate term to use: ‘chair’; or ‘chairman/ madam chairman’?
The term ‘chairman’ tends to be used widely in the private sector - as in Company
Chairman - but the term ‘chair’ was felt by some to be more suitable. Whichever
is used will depend to a large extent on local custom, but ‘chair’ has certainly
become much more popular over the years.

24. References
• David Smith – Asda Magic: The Seven
Principles of Building a High-Performance
Culture. Grosvenor House 2011. ISBN978-1-
908596-55-0
• Allan Leighton – Tough Calls: Making the Right
Decisions in Challenging Times. Random
House 2011. ISBN 978-1-847940-52-0
• Myers-Briggs – Wikipedia a useful starting
point