Collaborative Decisiona Making; What's Toyota Got to Do with It?

"It should be self-evident that when you involve people in the decision-making process they are more likely to support decisions once they are made."

Prologue

Over twenty years ago our school district introduced sight-based management for its schools. This initiative greatly increasesd the ability of schools to make decisions at a site-based level. School administrators now had much more say as to how per-pupil funding would be budgeted for their particular school.The following was written more than three years ago and is slightly dated in some references but the concerns and underlying issues remain current. What I offer here is a perspective on the ways this management model has affected teachers and schools and include suggestions as to how site-based management could become more effective through the addition of a site-based decision making model . . .

So, what's Toyota got to do with it?

The odds are quite good that you own, have owned, or will own a Toyota. (Aren’t we teachers inclined to intelligent, practical, and somewhat conservative consumption?) Toyota has for a long time been the most successful car maker on the planet; their vehicles are in high demand the world round for their high quality, dependability, and resale value. This success is, in large part, a result of innovative practices including the value Toyota places on its employees’ input and the amount of involvement and engagement the company offers to them.

A longstanding policy of Toyota is to encourage its employees to offer any ideas that could potentially improve the quality or efficiency of any company process or product. Japanese companies get a hundred times as many suggestions from their workers as U.S. companies do.

Unlike their American counterparts, Japanese frontline auto-workers have the authority, and are given the responsibility, to make critical day to day decisions, even so far as to“hit the kill switch” if they identify a problem or potential problem on the assembly line. As a daily occurance, teams muster to identify and discuss emergent problems and how correct or mitigate their effect on production.

Allowing such considerable input to the decision-making process may seem like a simple, practical, straightforward approach to the management of an organization however it has proven more difficult for American companies like General Motors to implement. The difficulty, in part, is because “most companies are still organized in a very top-down manner, and have a hard time handing responsibility to front-line workers.” (The Open Secret of Success, The New Yorker, May 12, 2008)

As a model for effective management of organizations Site-Based Decision Making [SBDM] seeks to engage employees in a similar manner. Such a model has proven to be an effective strategy for organizations to improve their processes, products and profits through the involvement and engagement of their workers.

Such an approach recognizes the value of the education and training, experience, and overall knowledge of the frontline worker. In May, 2000 Edmonton Public Schools, in conjunction with Edmonton Public Local of the ATA, produced a school handbook entitled “Framework for Involvement in Site-Based Decision Making.” This document came about as a result of a letter of intent that was signed in 1998’s round of bargaining between our Local and the District.

At that time, teachers had expressed a concern that teacher involvement in a school’s decision making process varied greatly from school to school. Some schools allowed teachers considerable involvement in decision making while others may have allowed very little. The framework document defined involvement as “having the opportunity to make or influence decisions in a variety of ways,” and went on to say that, in general, “staff want to be involved in decisions that affect them and their job including direction setting, the use of available resources and the selection of staff.” (May, 2000)

The guidelines put forward in the framework are prefaced with the following statement: It should be self-evident that when you involve people in the decision-making process they are more likely to support decisions once they are made. The reasoning behind this notion is that participation and involvement will give participants a stake in the decision and engage them in a positive way. A further result of participation is that teachers become more knowledgeable about the issues as they engage in the decision-making process. They are also more likely to show a commitment to decisions once they are made and even more willing to accept accountability for those decisions.

So how are we progressing as an organization with respect to SBDM? Is there still a patchwork of involvement school to school within our district or have schools adopted a more uniform approach to decision making? What direction is being given by the district to administrators in order to realize the benefits of recognizing and involving teachers as stakeholders in the decision making process?

The annual district satisfaction-survey a few years ago indicated that about 75% of teachers were satisfied with their level of involvement in decisions. That may sound like a positive result but a rough calculation would indicate that about a thousand teachers in the district are not satisfied with their level of participation. That is a large number of teachers who are still waiting to be heard.