Collaborative Decision Making

Collaborative decision making entails working together rather than independently in a decision making process. Although it can refer to as few as two individuals working together to make a decision, collaborative decision making in public relations typically refers to organizations working together with one or more external publics in a shared decision-making process. Common contexts for collaborative decision making in public relations are community relations and employee relations, and instruments of collaboration range from citizen surveys and public meetings to negotiations, mediations, and search conferences. Done well, collaborative decision making can lead to greater trust among participants and higher quality outcomes that a public views as more acceptable and legitimate than decisions where publics were not involved. Done poorly, collaborative decision-making efforts can leave participants feeling used, undervalued, and distrustful of future interactions.

The spirit of collaborative decision making is evident in early democratic principles, such as the right of citizens to have a voice in decisions that affect them. Early examples in the United States include the ubiquitous town hall meeting, where colonialists debated the future of the fledgling nation. The freedom to share in decision-making efforts has not always come without a struggle, however, as evidenced by the women's suffragist movement to earn voting rights or the labor movement to earn collective bargaining privileges. In response to greater calls for collaborative decision making, the latter half of the 20th century saw more legislation guaranteeing the right of citizens to participate in government-sponsored decision-making processes. Private organizations also experienced greater protest from publics that resisted being excluded from decisions that affected them.

Today, the techniques used for collaborative decision making are varied and can be targeted at internal as well as external publics. Because different techniques produce different outcomes, choosing the appropriate technique requires public relations practitioners to consider the context and goals of the collaboration. One of the first considerations entails who will have the final decision-making authority. The degree of collaboration in a decision can range from consultation and advisement to full-fledged partnership and control of the decision. Ensuring that all participants in a collaborative decision-making process know from the beginning their likely impact on the decision reduces the potential for later misunderstandings about how decisions were made. Table 1 provides descriptions of several techniques available for collaborative decision making. The table includes typical participants of the techniques as well as typical impacts participants have on decisions.

As the table illustrates, public meetings involve collaborative decision-making techniques where participants act in more of a consultant or advisory role. Rather than making a decision at the meeting, participants typically provide information or feedback to meeting organizers, who then make a decision sometime after the meeting. Benefits of public meetings are that they are open to any member of the public to attend; therefore, decision makers can often access a wide range of knowledge from people who attend. Drawbacks include the sometimes limited nature of collaboration, which may frustrate meeting attendees who want a greater role in the decision-making process. Biased representation is also a frequent criticism of public meetings, since only those most interested in the decision—though not necessarily most impacted by the decision—typically attend.

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