“Steering Committees are models of the law of unintended consequences”

We commonly assume that the involvement of senior executives in a project will improve the performance of that project. To that end, we form “steering committees” of such executives to, presumably, steer the project to its shining destination. Too often, instead of steering, these committees are little more than backseat drivers: they can’t see the road ahead, don’t know the route, don’t work the controls, and are lulled to sleep in the moving car. Like the classic backseat drivers, this position doesn’t preclude them from shouting directions and complaining about the ride – even to the point of hoping that the car will just turn around and go back home.

Unintended Consequences

Steering Committees are models of the law of unintended consequences. Do we think we might co-opt our executives into supporting our project by forming an executive committee for them to sit on? Be careful what you wish for! Depending on your company culture and individual executive personalities, your steering committee may turn into a new venue for inter-department conflict. It may draw unwanted, uninformed attention to a project the members did not know about and do not support. It might be the perfect forum for micromanagement. It is commonly the ideal mechanism for stalling, rather than enhancing, decision-making.

Even if you avoid these dire unintended consequences, a steering committee is almost guaranteed to delay your timetable, if for no other reason than since you created the committee, by definition it has to meet. And as an executive committee, by definition, it is very hard to get these folks in the same room at the same time on any regular interval. This leads to all middle managers’ bête noir – executives calling in to committee meetings from their scratchy cellphones from their car or another continent, or both. As we know, as the committee meeting reaches a critical decision point, the cellphone call is guaranteed to drop – perhaps conveniently, if avoiding a decision is the goal.

Overall, the common experience of those living with steering committees is their pure unpredictability. Having formed one, you are stuck with them – you cannot ignore them, hurry them, or argue with them. By forming one, you’ve created a new workload for yourself with unclear benefit.

The Value of a Steering Committee

A steering committee might be useful at three distinct points in a project:

1) In the very beginning, when money and staff resources, departmental alignment, the will to change and priorities all need to be marshaled.

2) At the very end of your project, to dole out appropriate praise to those deserving staff, and to lead a serious lessons-learned effort that generates meaningful knowledge for the next project.

3) During a particularly dire crisis midstream, when only executives can decide about a change in direction, investment, cancellation or expansion, often due to circumstances external to the project that the executives are in a unique position to know about and understand.

Each of these circumstances plays to the precise strength and purpose of executive guidance. They can be critical to your project and the investments being made. The trick is how to anticipate whether and when you will need this important assistance.

These three circumstances are at best discrete moments. The beginning and end points of your project may be benign and easily handled. There may be no crises at all. In which case, if you are preparing for monthly steering committee meetings, and living with the results, you are paying for insurance you may never need.

Other than these three points in time, what the steering committee most needs to do is to stay out of the way. One way towards that is to not schedule regular steering committee meetings on some artificial calendar-based schedule. Having regular arbitrary meetings only invites and legitimizes the backseat driving behavior. If a group meets regularly, eventually they will feel obligated to do something, much like an auditor feels obligated to find something wrong. Nothing is more dangerous than a committee looking for a purpose.

An Alternative

Why are we worried about the impact of a steering committee on decision-making? This is both the heart of the frustration and the solution to the problem. We are mixing up “steering” and “deciding”. You need not automatically abdicate authority to a steering committee because of its name or the rank of the members. It is precisely this abdication that makes this discussion so important. Stalled or misguided decision-making undermines the hard work of clinical development professionals everyday. You hurry to a deadline, only to find that people are not ready for the fruits of our labors. Only the most knowledgeable and best informed staff can make use of your work, and decide what and when to move forward.

In all but the handful of circumstances described above, why do you need a steering committee? Perhaps “steering committee” is the wrong term – you may not need to be “steered” at all, but rather advised, or helped. Can a project or a trial use the advice of senior executives? Can you use their help in getting cooperation from their peers, additional funds, or scientific guidance? Absolutely. But clearly that is not “steering”. Indeed, perhaps we who are running the project should be in fact steering the steering committee – being alert to how they can help, and when.

We are the ones at the wheel, foot on the gas, eyes on the road. You may have even been down this road before, or one very similar to it. You have passengers who can help with the trip, and we welcome executives to come along for the ride. They will enjoy it and we will learn from them. But leave the driving to us.