[orthoxerox]

A good way to approach this is to think like a military: there might be a staff, but there is only one commander in the unit. Their whole job is making the right decision as quickly as possible and assuming responsibility for it.

If the manager keeps avoiding making decisions and diluting responsibility, they aren't fit to be a manager.

[chasd00]

I’ve used this analogy before but people hate it. on internal projects at my firm everyone wants everyone else to have an equal voice out of guilt. The meetings and navel gazing never stop and the work becomes working on the process and never actually delivering on the need.

With client projects it’s different, you have a budget and deadline. Miss it or screw up on the way and the client fires you and hires your competitor. My client delivery teams are a much harsher environment but roles and responsibility for decisions are very clear and everyone’s job is at stake so it gets taken pretty seriously. There’s no room or time for consensus building, the flip side being owning a bad decision means working somewhere else.

[marcosdumay]

Oh, it's important that everybody has a voice. But it should never be equal, making it equal almost guarantees the project will stop.

Making sure everybody has a voice is a task for the people that actually have power there. The other part of that task is cutting those people down and overruling them when needed.