myAIPM7 Strategies for Better Group Decision-Making
Torben Emmerling and Duncan Rooders | Harvard Business Review
"When you have a tough business problem to solve, you likely bring it to a group. After all, more minds are better than one, right? Not necessarily. Larger pools of knowledge are by no means a guarantee of better outcomes. Because of an over-reliance on hierarchy, an instinct to prevent dissent, and a desire to preserve harmony, many groups fall into groupthink.
Misconceived expert opinions can quickly distort a group decision. Individual biases can easily spread across the group and lead to outcomes far outside individual preferences. And most of these processes occur subconsciously.
This doesn’t mean that groups shouldn’t make decisions together, but you do need to create the right process for doing so. Based on behavioral and decision science research and years of application experience, we have identified seven simple strategies for more effective group decision making:
Keep the group small when you need to make an important decision. Large groups are much more likely to make biased decisions. For example, research shows that groups with seven or more members are more susceptible to confirmation bias. The larger the group, the greater the tendency for its members to research and evaluate information in a way that is consistent with pre-existing information and beliefs. By keeping the group to between three and five people, a size that people naturally gravitate toward when interacting, you can reduce these negative effects while still benefitting from multiple perspectives."
Read more
7 Strategies for Better Group Decision-Making, Torben Emmerling and Duncan Rooders, Harvard Business Review, 2020