Make Better Group Decisions

As your business grows, more team members will be involved in the decision making process.  From the Harvard Business Review, here is a short article on how to best use the different personalities and talents on your team to get the best results.

 

Make Better Group Decisions

When you have a tough business problem to solve, you probably bring it to a group. But there are risks to asking a team to collectively make decisions — namely, groupthink. Fortunately, there are behavioral science-based tactics that can help overcome the downsides. First, keep the group as small as possible. Having more voices in the room increases the likelihood that you’ll default to decisions that enforce the status quo. Next, make sure your group is diverse — in every sense of the word — in order to reduce bias. Try appointing a “devil’s advocate,” a person whose job is to test consensus. Watch out for blind trust in experts: While they can help you become more informed, making them part of your decision-making can sway your team’s judgments. So you might invite them to provide their opinion on a clearly defined topic, but position them as informed outsiders. And finally, make sure that the group shares collective responsibility. Everyone should feel accountable for the decision and its outcomes.

 

This tip is adapted from “7 Strategies for Better Group Decision-Making,” by Torben Emmerling and Duncan Rooders