Perchestra: Dynamics of Group Decisions

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Saturday, February 22, 2014

Dynamics of Group Decisions

As a follow-up on my earlier blog Collaborative Decision Making, I want to share my experiences on factors that hinder effective decision making by a group. The very concept of group decisions is based on the assumption that the group members have a diverse professional/educational background and the endeavour, is in fact, to bring in to play the best of each of them. In reality, however, this is rarely the case. I have closely examined the decision making of many teams in the course of my simulation workshops. A few of the important factors responsible for the poor outcome are mentioned below under three broad groupins. Inadequate knowledge of each others' strengths/weaknesses In some groups the members did not make it a point to introduce themselves to others highlighting their strengths and weaknesses. There were also instances where this was done but not truthfully. Some would overstate their strengths to "make an impression" much the same way as he/she would do in a job interview! There are others who would hide their weaknesses for obvious reasons. All these would lead to a situation where a person is entrusted with the wrong part of decision making or alternatively undue weight is given to a person's assessment of a potential decision and its impact.

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Poor/non-existent decision making process Submit Define - Measure - Improve is a well accepted template for eventual success. Participants in their enthusiasm to participate in the decision making forget this basic step. Consequently they are clueless when it comes to a causal analysis of errors committed. Reasons for "failure" in a simulation, can, as in real life, be due to errors (of commission or omission) or genuine business outcome. Unless we are able to establish the real cause, right lessons for improvement will not be learnt. "I expected to sell more this year too. But Team C did a strategic turn-around and re-jigged their offerings" is a business outcome. "Consequently I had to make unplanned borrowings at very high cost" is an error as it reflects a failure to put in place a safety net to manage the uncertainty. An important factor often lost sight of, is the fact that when there is a defined process and measurement several improvements happen. For e.g., some of the teams realized that lot of data crunching needs to be done to analyze and understand the position of the competing teams. They put in some effort and developed a worksheet to handle this task which repeats every round. This way they could reduce time spent on "operations". Evaluation of reliability of a team members' intuition can also happen by defining a metric and measuring. A successful combination of intuition and intellect can take the quality of decision to an altogether different plane. Similarly, measurement can also identify the gaps between knowledge and skill. Lack of leadership Although it would have been best to put this ahead of the others, I have intentionally placed it here. An effective leader would not allow the other two to happen! In a non-formal group leaders have to emerge. Assuming the leader to be effective, earlier this happens, the better. Very often although we find leader to be in place early on, the right leader emerges much later after the initial one has had his/her run! In a dedicated workshop for a

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2014 (4) February (2) Dynamics of Group Decisions Familiarity Arbitrage January (2) 2013 (15) 2012 (14) CR Subramanya Bangalore, India perchestra.com View my complete profile

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Friday 07 March 2014 09:37 PM

Perchestra: Dynamics of Group Decisions

http://blogs.perchestra.in/2014/02/dynamics-of-g...

corporate, extra care needs to be taken to ensure that their official role and relationship does not prevent them from "rebooting" into the non-formal structure. Real life leaders playing non-leadership roles and vice-versa can lead to great learnings. Posted by CR Subramanya at 12:52 AM
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Friday 07 March 2014 09:37 PM