How to Make a Decision Like a Tribe

Other businesspeople who have attended a council ceremony organized by RainbowHawk and WindEagle echo Vogt's sentiments. For example, Jim Chrz, 52, Chevrolet's director of total customer enthusiasm, is a traditional businessman in a traditional business. But after twice experiencing the decision-making approach of a council ceremony, Chrz counts himself a convert.

"I'm in the car business and I'm not a tree hugger," he says. "But everyone in business today is on a journey. We're evolving away from the quick-fix, bottom-line school toward an approach that looks for the relationship between things. Sure it's hard to see people in Chevrolet participating with feathers and smoke," Chrz acknowledges. "But we've spent time creating a consensus in the company based on values. You could say we're already doing something like this. Besides, if we want visionary leaders who are capable of understanding ambiguity, what could be better?"

Lessons from the Council Ceremony

In addition to these general benefits, people who have experienced the ceremony approach have found that it offers concrete lessons that could help business improve its decision making.

• Good decisions begin with listening. The Western give-and-take meeting emphasizes talking rather than listening. Businesspeople come into a meeting prepared to give their presentations -- not to listen to the contributions of others. And the debate format encourages people to begin formulating their responses while the other side is speaking, rather than listening and reserving judgment. The first element of a council ceremony, on the other hand, is careful listening.
• Make important decisions feel important. Turning an important decision into a trivial discussion runs the risk of trivializing the decision. The council ceremony elevates the consideration of the matter at hand by using distinct rituals, solemn and more formal speech patterns, and extraordinary titles and ceremonial objects. In such an environment, people think and speak more carefully, listen more attentively, and, perhaps, act more wisely.
• Emphasize information, not advocacy. U.S. business follows, for the most part, a legal model: decision-making sessions are minitrials, with people who advocate certain positions. When the decision comes down, someone wins and someone loses. The council ceremony emphasizes points of view, not debating points. Instead of determining winners and losers, the tribe must come up with a decision that serves the interests of the entire group.
• Truth, not turf. Most decision making is structured around preexisting turf: marketing versus manufacturing, line versus staff, foreign versus domestic, headquarters versus field. People argue for a position based on where they sit or what they do. In the council ceremony, those preestablished positions are the first thing to go. A marketing manager may find herself sitting as a Law Dog Chief, having to determine whether the discussion has moved to a decision rather than concern herself with marketing interests; a lawyer from the general counsel's office may be seated as one of the Women Chiefs, speaking on behalf of nurturing the organization. The reframing of roles is so dramatic that it forces a reframing of thinking.
• A slower process yields better decisions. Rather than looking for the fastest answer to a pressing problem, the council process accepts the need for careful, in-depth reflection. With the understanding that implementation is faster, easier, and more successful if it comes after all implications of an issue have been thrashed out, the process doesn't address the question of action until the latter stages of the discussion. "By the time you get around to talking about action," notes Eric Vogt, "the whole council has had a chance to speak and feels engaged in the results."

It's unlikely that the council ceremony will suddenly sweep into the boardrooms and meeting rooms of U.S. business. And it's difficult to imagine all elements of the exercise fitting into the decision-making routines with which most executives feel comfortable. But it's not difficult to use the eight perspectives of the chiefs to break a group out of its lockstep decision-making process. And Earth Wisdom as presented in this way of a council ceremony is an intriguing and enlightening tool -- a reminder that the secret to finding the right answer is in asking the right question.

As WindEagle told the council at the Charles Hotel: "The first people had questions, and they were free. The second people had answers, and they became enslaved."

Peter Carlin (73071.353@Compuserve.com) writes on business and culture from Portland, Oregon. His work has appeared in "The New York Times Magazine," "The Los Angeles Times Magazine", and "Men's Journal."