The greatest evil of Team Decision Making

Have you ever been part of a team who made a bad decision?

And afterwards, when you saw the outcome, you felt guilty?

Guilty because you 'had a feeling' at the time that it was not the best decision. But everyone else in the team seemed to be going along with it and you didn't want to be the one to rock the boat. So you kept your concerns quiet and went along with everyone else.

This is actually a well known condition which can negatively affect the quality of team decisions. It is called GROUP THINK. In my workshops I teach teams practical, effective and immediately applicable ways of reducing bias such as GROUP THINK.

Two simple strategies which can help reduce GROUP THINK include: - Keep the size of the team's smaller (five people is my IDEAL size for effective team decision making. I will share why I like five later) - Allow everyone in the team two minutes of silence, as a group to form their own opinion and write it down, before you start openly sharing on an issue.

Grant 'Axe' Rawlinson pondering the consequences if yet another powerful decision whilst cycling across Australia