Interlude - Index of

Managing Engineers | 111
As near as I can tell, this is Dan’s ownership model for
pretty much everything. I can’t think of many times that Dan
has told the owner, “You can do whatever you want, and I’ll
support it.” On the other hand, for many areas it is very clear
who the owner is, and unless people can point to a serious,
serious problem with the owner’s plan, they are unlikely to
withhold consent.
••
Being new to management, I worked with a management
coach, which I recommend strongly, if you can find the right
one. Isabella Conti was my coach, and when she polled my
staff, their biggest complaint was that I made decisions too
slowly. Perhaps I was reacting against my experience with
Mike Malcolm, who I thought made decisions too fast and too
often. Part of my problem was that I don’t really like telling
people what to do: I prefer for a group consensus to emerge.
Unfortunately, consensus is sometimes slow and painful. The
message from my group was that some decisions aren’t important
enough to bother with consensus. Should staff meetings
be on Tuesday or Wednesday? Either way you’ll inconvenience
somebody, but it’s not that big a deal. The boss should
just decide and save time for everyone. Other decisions may be
important enough for consensus, but—for whatever reason—
consensus is never going to happen. Maybe different people
have strongly held beliefs and they aren’t changing. Again, the
boss should decide—perhaps after some attempt at consensus—and
save time for everyone.
Managers have a range of decision-making options. They
can decide by themselves, decide with group input, delegate