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There is a natural tendency in most people I know to gravitate towards voting as a management tool, particularly in situations where there is a vocal disagreement. This is probably because it’s part of the western culture to favour democracy, and because it works a lot of the time.

However, there are times when voting is definitely not the right way to make decisions. What are the factors that make it so, and how do you figure out whether voting is the right tool for your current problem?

Pros of the voting method

First, let’s start with the situations where it does work. There are a lot of positive features to a team vote. Here are a few:

A team vote is very good at creating ownership of the solution. It seems like an open and fair method of reaching a decision (even though it’s not hard to twist it and abuse it), and it relies on one of the most powerful tools of influence: peer pressure. Basically, a team vote is a form of open, institutionalised peer pressure. “The group has decided to do it this way, and so you should comply.” This is not a bad thing. It makes the team vote a very powerful tool for getting people to not only “agree to do” (which a hierarchical order could achieve), but even “agree to agree”, in a way. “Let the team vote on this” is roughly equivalent to “Let’s all agree with whatever the team agrees with”.

It also tends to generate more lasting agreement, because implicit in the peer pressure is that if you change your mind later, you have to take it up with the team, and most people find it more daunting to take up an argument with a group (particularly if it’s large) than with an individual. This actually presents a significant drawback, but more on that later.

Finally, another side-effect of democratic choice is that it spreads responsibility. When a choice can have dire consequences and no one is willing to make a decision, a quick vote can resolve the issue by absolving everyone from actually having to take responsibility for the consequences of that choice. Again, this can be a positive and a negative.

Sounds like a great tool, and it is. What are the negatives, though?

Cons of the voting method

A couple of downsides should be obvious already from my description above. Let’s start with a simple one: ownership. I’m a firm believer that holding people responsible for their choices is a good way of ensuring good results. If you’re trying to get the whole team to own a decision, then a vote might do it. If you were trying to get a specific person (the one who’s actually going to deliver the end result) to own the decision, the team vote will actually work against you by diffusing the responsibility. So when trying to ensure a single person’s ownership, team voting isn’t the way.

Another disadvantage is linked to the “lasting agreement” I mentioned before. People will be less willing to challenge the decision once it’s been voted on. If that was your intent, then fine. But if the decision the team reached happens to be the wrong one, you will probably end up sticking with it a lot longer than you would have otherwise, because of this implicit peer pressure.

This leads us to another, much more insidious downside, which I believe is the worst feature of a team vote. The question no one ever asks when voting on a decision is: will our decision be the right one?

Despite all the recent literature about how crowds are smarter than experts, that’s only true “under the right circumstances”. According to Wisdom of Crowds, . “Wise crowds” need (1) diversity of opinion; (2) independence of members from one another; (3) decentralization; and (4) a good method for aggregating opinions. I think it’s fair to say that the average team lacks most of these characteristics.

Basically, the point is, the team decision is often unreliable at best. If, then, the decision is important enough to generate enough controversy to demand a vote, should a vote even be considered?

I believe the answer to that is a resounding ‘no’. In a typical project, there are many, many situations where important decisions need to be made. These situations can be anything from “which font should we use?” (incredibly important to designers) to “should we hire one more person?” or “should we include this feature?” In those situations, using a team vote is simply using the wrong tool for the job. There are experts in most issues encountered by the average project team, and where no expert is immediately available, one can be created by assigning one person to research the problem and come up with the right solution. Once you do have that expert, let them make the decision, don’t put things to a vote.

Examples of where voting doesn’t work

The perennial example is any form of creative activity. Groups can be successfully engaged in generating ideas, but ultimately, great artistic creations are born from the vision of one, or very few, intensely focused minds. Certainly, many people are involved, and essential, in the creation of, say, a movie, but ultimately, there is a single person at the helm (the director), who is responsible for the “whole thing”, the big picture, and has to have final say on what goes in and what doesn’t. Every time that rule is broken, a bad movie is made (see Pirates of the Caribbean 2 and 3 for a great example of this type of “horse designed by a committee”).

Another more business-like example would be a decision of how to price a product. I once sat in a meeting where it was suggested that the team vote on the product pricing. This is a domain where there is definitely a single, right answer, and there are reams of material on how to do product pricing research. This kind of decision should never be thrown up for a team to vote on.

Participation without voting

There is one last point which must be added to this. Although many typical business decisions should be made by a single person, this does not mean they should sit alone in an ivory tower, never listening to anyone else from the team. Even if the decision ultimately rests with the expert, they can and should encourage participation, input and discussion from the rest of the team. In fact, that should be a key step in coming to a conclusion: ensure that by the time the decision is announced, the team already supports it.

But the final decision must rest with that one expert who’s taken the time and responsibility to make it correctly.