Finally, Bobby’s the boss, and he wants to be a great leader. But can he drive the company forward? His ego’s on the line, and he’s ready to take risks by taking full responsibility for all decisions about the business.
While this is a very traditional approach to leadership, the single-decision-maker scenario can be detrimental to both Bobby and the company in many ways. Over time, we’ve come to understand a lot more about effective leadership, team building, and company culture. Along the way, we’ve learned a lot about why group decision-making is important, too.
It’s easy to identify instances at work when getting input from the group before a decision can prove helpful. These include:
- Hiring new staff
- Changing work processes
- Deciding on company objectives
- Planning business investments
- Making new public policies
But this list doesn’t answer the question of why group decision-making is important. Let’s consider that in more detail.
Why involve team members in decisions?
Involving your group members in decision-making has several benefits. In this section we share six important ones.
1. Embrace Diverse Perspectives
When members of a team or individuals across teams are invited to participate in decision-making, you ensure a variety of experiences and expertise are voiced. A single leader, or even a small group, may have a limited viewpoint. This approach does not take advantage of the diversity within your organization.
Without soliciting other alternate approaches or unique insights into a problem, you might limit the range of solutions evaluated. This could leave you overlooking the best idea because it is unspoken in the mind of someone you didn’t include in the decision-making process.
2. Enhance Creativity and Innovation
Collaborating on a decision can help foster a company culture of creativity and innovation. By being open to brainstorming and discussing different ideas, you model for employees a willingness to be open to fresh approaches. This can translate to more creativity and a more innovative mindset in other areas of your business as well.
3. Increase Employee Engagement
Discussing decisions and potential outcomes helps build trust and enhance transparency. Plus, participating in the decision-making process typically makes people more invested in the outcome. This can support your change management efforts and smooth the path to success for new initiatives.
Meanwhile, you are demonstrating to your employees that you respect them and want to hear their opinions. Employees who feel heard are much more likely to feel connected to their work. This means group decision-making may also be viewed as a retention effort.
4. Improve Problem-solving
Group decision-making requires individuals to engage in critical thinking, listen actively, and effectively communicate ideas with others. All this can lead to better overall problem-solving processes for your business. You’ll not only know how to decide things as a group, but you’ll learn how to access collective knowledge and rely on one another to meet complex challenges.
5. Better Risk Management
When Bobby makes decisions on his own, he can be unaware of his blindspots. He might “go with his gut,” when someone else on his team, if asked, could have provided data to the contrary. (If you’ve conducted employee 360 feedback studies, you know how important it can be to bring blindspots (and hidden strengths!) to light, but it can be very difficult to highlight someone’s blindspots in real time!)
Establishing a process that allows you to enable decision participation from anywhere, at any time, can overcome the perceived obstacle that it will take too long or be too hard to get group input. Then, by involving diverse stakeholders, you can cut potential risks by taking advantage of a wealth of expertise, experience, and perspectives.
6. Promote Professional Development
Involving employees in decisions asks them to share their knowledge and opinions with the team. This enhances teamwork and promotes stronger relationships, which can help people to gain confidence, find mentors, and take more professional risks.
At the same time, these individuals are building their decision-making skills, too. While engaging with the group in evaluating options they see modeled and participate in:
- Analyzing several options
- Considering consequences
- Setting goals
- Accountability
- Interpreting data
- Drawing connections
- Recognizing bias
All of these skills can benefit the employee’s career potential beyond the moment of decision-making.
Still, you want to avoid groupthink
The biggest pitfall to avoid with group decision-making? Groupthink. Take the 1986 Space Shuttle Challenger disaster as an example. A lone rocket engineer suggested the flight be scrubbed (for the 10th time) but the rest of the team at NASA didn’t see the same risks. Seven astronauts died.
So, although there are many advantages to group decision-making, you need to work also to avoid groupthink. When consensus decisions are reached without critical evaluation of dissenting viewpoints or alternate courses of action, you could face dire consequences.
Groupthink has many pitfalls such as:
- Members may feel pressured to conform to the majority view
- The group may grow overconfident and more reckless
- Other courses of action are given only superficial consideration
- Alternative perspectives are feared as disruptive of group harmony
- Those with dissenting opinions can be seen as enemies or adversaries
- Members may persist once a decision is made due to reluctance to speak up and change course (even despite evidence suggesting the decision is flawed)
Fortunately, lots of people have opinions on how to do group decision-making well. Now that you know why group decision-making is important, and what to avoid, look out for our next article which shares several effective techniques for effective group decision-making.
Need to make better decisions? Wondering about your own blindspots? Sogolytics makes it easy and efficient to collect the feedback you need from your most important stakeholders! Check out our enterprise survey software to start getting the answers you need.
