Committees like all tools are powerful. If wielded properly committees can be useful and highly effective.
Why are committees necessary?
Committee means entrusting matters to some persons to achieve a desired outcome.
No individual can know everything, nor can devote time to think about all matters.
Committees can be of several kinds. A committee can be a small group of people who examine challenges, situations and problems and recommend solutions on behalf of all members of an organisation.
In many cases committees do not simply recommend, they also manage. Meaning they plan, direct, staff, deploy, coordinate and control resources to achieve certain desired goals.
Committees work on the principle that many heads are better than one. Hoping that there will be less nepotism, and corruption and higher quality of decisions and actions.
In my previous article, 'Committees, the most effective way to do nothing' I pointed out the problems with committees and why they tend to be dysfunctional. Take the example of the construction of three European cathedrals, which took more than 500 years to build simply because of using committees. There were simply too many people involved in decision making and hence the plans and strategy kept on changing. Cologne Cathedral took 632 years to build (1248 - 1880), St. Vitus Cathedral in Prague took 585 years (1344~1929), and Milan Cathedral took 579 Years (1386~1965).
History is replete with such examples.
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