As a leader or boss, my process and approach has always been to speak last. This allows me to ensure that others in the room have airtime. This includes people from different parts of the business as well as across the organizational stack. To me it does not matter who you are; if you are in the room, you have earned the right to be there and to share what you think about a problem.

I particularly try to encourage the junior team members to go first as often they can be deferential to the senior team and therefore either don’t say anything or simply agree with the senior opinion offered. I find less tenured employees often have a lot of fresh, exciting, bold, and creative solutions that are not affected by groupthink or company legacy methods.

The second group I want to hear from is the group of people who are not directly involved in the project or problem being discussed. This allows fresh and unbiased perspectives to be heard and ideas that the project team may not have entertained.

The first benefit of the above approach is cultural where the junior team gets to participate, genuinely feel like they have been able to contribute, and collectively helps them build their confidence. They are the future of the company and their voice matters a lot. This allows them to experience that at a tactical level. The second benefit is a richer problem-solving session that is well-rounded by including content from those deep into the problem as well as those far removed. The joint problem solving allows not just the team but the company to develop outcomes that have buy-in from across the board. This leads to quicker and more effective implementation and eventually value creation for the business.

We incorporate a process for dissent. For larger initiatives, we begin with a short written brief, then employ three diverse stakes (a practitioner, a client-facing lead, and an external team member) to red-team the brief in writing prior to the meeting. We collect their notes asynchronously to avoid groupthink, review what is relevant for the owner, who then revises the notes and calls the decision. This process has surfaced risks we would have missed, clarified trade-offs early on, and has reduced the amount of work that has to be re-done because more voices shape the plan before it solidifies. It has also built trust because people see their point of view coming through in the final call, even if we do not take every suggestion.

I’ve found the best way to include diverse perspectives in decision-making is to design the process so they can’t be skipped. In my consulting practice, I build what I call structured dissent, where, by design, every major policy or initiative review includes people who will be most affected by the change and not just those in leadership roles pushing the change. It does slow the process slightly, but we see significant improvement in the accuracy and adoption rate across all levels of participation.

To ensure diverse perspectives in decision-making, I introduced cross-functional advisory teams that included employees from different departments, experience levels, and backgrounds, from field staff to senior leaders. This replaced traditional top-down decisions with collaborative discussions where every voice mattered.

When we redesigned our employee benefits program, the advisory team’s input led to stronger offerings in mental health support, family leave, and flexible work, areas especially valued by our diverse workforce.

The impact was clear: engagement and satisfaction rose, turnover dropped, and the quality of our decisions improved by giving employees a seat at the table.

One approach I’ve found particularly effective for ensuring diverse perspectives in decision-making is our weekly cross-functional prioritization meetings. We bring together team members from technology, product development, and client services to collaboratively review and decide on our product roadmap priorities. Having representatives from these different areas means we benefit from multiple viewpoints when evaluating bug fixes and feature requests, which leads to more balanced decisions. This collaborative approach has significantly improved our product development outcomes by ensuring we’re not just addressing technical concerns but also considering business impact and client needs. The result has been more thoughtful prioritization and ultimately products that better serve our diverse customer base.

I’ve found that active listening is crucial for including diverse perspectives in our decision-making processes. During a challenging project where team members initially had conflicting viewpoints, I focused on creating an open dialogue where everyone felt comfortable sharing their insights without fear of judgment. This approach prevented any single perspective from dominating the conversation and allowed us to develop a more comprehensive solution that incorporated multiple viewpoints. The result was not only a stronger final outcome that exceeded our initial expectations, but also increased trust and collaboration among team members who felt their contributions were genuinely valued.

One approach we use is our “one voice at a time” rule, where each person shares their perspective once to help inform our decision. This keeps conversations balanced so no one dominates and ensures every voice is heard, which is something I really value as an introverted leader. For team members who prefer other forms of communication, we also use surveys or quick votes to capture input in different ways, anonymously as often as possible. This structure has helped us get more thoughtful, diverse perspectives in the mix, leading to better decisions and stronger buy-in over time.

We incorporate varying viewpoints by alternating who participates in major decisions. As we refined our onboarding process, we did a few external onboarding projects involving Virtual Assistants based in other countries who work regularly with clients. They identified problems management did not, such as ambiguous turn of message conversations and uncertain instructions.

Their feedback decreased support tickets and simplified onboarding. The habit educated us that diversity isn’t merely about background, it’s about point of view. Those closest to the work are usually clearest, and bringing them in yields stronger results and stronger teams.

I seek different viewpoints through a structured review process involving each area, whether it is technicians or office staff, before any major decision is made. Each individual inputs a written recommendation regarding patient experience, operational efficiency and risk. Through this mechanism, I am able to obtain perspectives from those who work directly with patients and technology on a daily basis, and it allows me to identify problems before they grow.

As we developed our WaveLight Plus LASIK protocol, this method of inclusion provided information concerning minor calibration differences in the patient setup that had been missed by the engineers. By working to correct this problem, it allowed a dramatic improvement in the accuracy of the procedure and a 12% reduction in chair time. This demonstrated the fact that through consistent inclusion of ground-level perspective, superior outcomes for patients and accountability for the team can be realized.

We have several groups and committees at our organization which contribute to the organization’s decision-making processes. Firstly, we have our Senior Leadership group which is comprised of Officers and Directors, responsible for spearheading organizational goals and initiatives. We also have a Strategic Planning Committee, which is comprised of employees from all levels at our organization. This committee is responsible for developing and tracking progress of objectives across all different areas of the company. We have a Managers and Supervisors group, which is composed of anyone who has a direct report. This group is utilized to solicit feedback for things such as implementing/updating policies, procedures and best practices; as well as acting as intermediaries between organizational leadership and employees, as it relates to carrying out the day-to-day work. Finally, we have a Wellness Committee, which is responsible for coming up with morale and wellness ideas to be implemented via various forms at the agency (e.g. company parties, communication posts, community events, etc.). This is a voluntary committee that anyone can participate in throughout the year. We also solicit feedback for consideration from fireside chats with leadership, agency staff meetings, and supervision meetings. Having a multi-faceted approach gives everyone the opportunity to participate in some fashion and have a “voice” in various decision-making processes at our organization.