I agree that it's good team building to work together in a large group, but do you have to carry around 16 managers for every decision? Why is one person so afraid of standing up and saying I made the decision because I feel it benefits the company, and then go into your data and facts. Then have anyone who objects come forwarded. Instead of having to cross reference every member or other departments for trivial decisions.
This indeed is a case of incompetence being masked with teamwork - I see it all the time (I work for government a lot).
As Archibald Putt said: When in doubt - form a task force. If doubt persist, form a comitee.
In the same way, you judge that team as being ineffectual in making a decision, but unless you have the cultural understanding of that country, you could be misunderstanding shared decision making as something else. Your explanation, whilst completely logical, is from your 'lens' of the world and may or may not have any accuracy in explaining another person's behavior.
(I will point out here that I can't comment if the situation in the article is a cultural difference or incompetence. I don't know enough about the country nor the situation to comment. My only point is that I suspect Rod doesn't know either - he's judging them based on his world view without really understanding the cultural issues. However quite possibly, it's simply an incompetence issue).