Chapter 9 B

Group Decision Making

1
 Main Benefits and Problems with using
groups to make decisions

Benefits
 Bring more resources to a problem
 Pooltheir knowledge , which leads to new ideas
and insights : process gain
 Incorrect
solutions are more likely to be identified
and rejected

2
Benefits of group decision making
 Has motivational effects: 
 -encouragesmember to try and make good
decisions and try to perform them better 
 -theyare more committed to a decision in which
they participated à therefore they are more likely
to support in implementations
 ·Members benefit by gaining a better
understanding of the issues involved by
participating in discussion 3
Problems

 They are less efficient at quick decision

making because suffer from process loss:
discussions that are about coordination and
social issues and this wastes time cause it
prevents groups from focusing solely on
their tasks

4
Communication problems:
 emotional conflicts that waste time and hurt morale
 powerful or talkative team members can dominate
discussion
 discussions
can get side tracked, interrupted, and
disorganized
 They do not pool all the knowledge available and
instead focus on knowledge that is common to all the
members.
 Make recommendations rather than a decision
5
Factors that cause group decisions to be
superior to individual decisions
 Group Composition
 -Heterogeneous members with complementary skills make
for superior group decisions and diversity of opinion
 Good Communication
 Successful pools of knowledge and ideas of the group
 Need for Groups to Make Decisions
 Since
groups are used for tasks that are too complex for
one person 6
Consultative, Democratic, and
Consensus decision making

Consultative decision making

 oneperson has authority to make the decision, but
he or she may ask for advice and comments from
team members before deciding
 usedin a team when a project is divided into parts
and one person has the responsibility to do a part.

7
Consultative decision making

 The person responsible for a specific part may

ask for advice and might need to coordinate
with others.
 Uses some of the resources of the team
 Disadvantagesare: that it does not fully develop
commitment to a decision, does not resolve
conflicts among team members, and may
encourage competition among team members. 8
Democratic Decision Making
 voting to make a decision
 Problem: nearly half the people could disagree and
they might be unwilling to support and implement
the decision after it has been made. Prematurely
close discussion on an issue that has not been fully
resolved. Creates resentment.
 Advantage:
a quick way to include the opinions of all
team members
9
Consensus Approach

 Requiresdiscussion of an issue until all

members agree to accept it à one is willing
to accept and support the decision.
 Distadvantage: time consuming

10
Factors Useful for Evaluating a Decision making
Approach
 A.)Quality
 - Include group discussion and participation 
 B.)Speed
 -prioritize the decisions that a team needs to make 
 C.)Acceptance or Support
 -include input from the team members
 Interrelationship
 the more time to make decision the more information that is gathered and
better decision making.
 The more time to gain commitment to the decision. 11
Normative Decision-making

 The NormativeDecision-making
Theory Helps Teams to Make Decisions
 ·The
best type of decision making approach
depends on the nature of the problem.
 ·Twoissues: quality of decision or
acceptance of the decisions, which is more
important?
12
Factors that Disrupt the Ability of
Groups to Make Good Decisions
 Disagreements
 Premature closure – avoid disagreement by
voting to make a quick decision.
 Politics,
a domineering leader, hidden
agendas, poor norms lead to disagreements
 Some disagreement helps stimulate thinking
and leads to better decisions
13
Factors that Disrupt the Ability of
Groups to Make Good Decisions
 Time Pressure to Decide
 ·Respond to time pressure by trying to make a quick
decision.
 ·Use decision making approaches that are simple and
inadequate.
 ·Willput decision making to leader or one group
member, which gets rid of benefits that comes with
group analysis 14
Factors that Disrupt the Ability of
Groups to Make Good Decisions
 Outsideforces ( external competition,
upper management, other parts of the
organization)pressure group for a decision.
 ·Decisionsmaking process interupted and
decisions are rushed

15
Factors that Disrupt the Ability of
Groups to Make Good Decisions
 Group Polarization
 Group Polarization: The effect of a group
discussion is to make the final decision more
extreme than the average of the members. This
can be either more risky or more cautious,
depending on the initial inclination of the group.

16
Factors that Disrupt the Ability of
Groups to Make Good Decisions

 RiskyShift- when groups made more riskier

decision than did individuals
 Group Polarization occurs only when the group has
an initial tendency, not when there are major
differences of opinion among the members.

17
Factors that Disrupt the Ability of
Groups to Make Good Decisions
 NormativeInfluences– describes how the existing group
norm affects the decision-making process.
 Group members want to create a favorable impression,
so they compare their answers to the group’s norm and
then shift their positions to be more consistent with it.
 The group norm shifts as members shift their positions
in an attempt to be more typical of the group’s
position.
18
Information influence

 Informationinfluence – is caused by the amount of

exposure to information during a group discussion.
 -When a group discusses an issue, most of the
discussion is from the dominant positionà which allows
more exposure to arguments supporting dominant
positionà which cause them to shift their opinions in
that direction.
19
 Groupthink

 Occurswhen group members’ desire to maintain

good relations becomes more important than
reaching a good decision.
 Insteadof searching for an answer they are search
for a good outcome that will preserve harmony
 Leads to bad decisions

20
3 main factors that contribute to group
think:
 Structural decision making flaws
 Group Cohesiveness
 External Pressure

21
Structural decision making flaws

 Structural
decision making flaws- create bad decision
because they impair the group decision-making process.
 Flaws such as :
 ignoring of input from outside sources
a lack of diversity in viewpoints within the group
 the acceptance of decisions without critical analysis
 history of accepting decision made by the leader
22
Group Cohesiveness

Group Cohesiveness – encourages

group-think by creating an
environment that limits internal
dissension and criticism.

23
External Pressure

 ExternalPressure- experienced by the group leads to a

set of symptoms that show that groupthink is occurring.
 -Symptoms indicate how the group convinces itself that
it has made a good decision and that everyone in the
group agrees with it.
 ·Techniques to prevent groupthink is to create the role
of a critical evaluator to comment on the group’s
decisions and processes.  24
Benefits and Problems with Structured
Decision-Making Techniques
Nominal Group Think
 Nominal Group Think – allows a group of people to focus on the
task of making a decision without developing any social relations.
 ·Nominal- does not require a true group; it can be used by a
collection or people who are brought together to make a decision.
 ·The leader states the problem to group members write down
solutions in private then each states answer publicly then group
members rank the values of the solutions.

25
Nominal Group Think – Advantages and
disadvantages
 Advantage: relatively quick, discourage
pressure to conform, does not require the
group members to get to know each other.
 ·Disadvantage: it requires a trained
facilitator and addresses only one narrowly
defined problem at a time.

26
Delphi Technique
 Delphi Technique- uses a series of written surveys to make a
decision
 Experts given a survey with open-ended questions about
problem solutions are summarized into proposed solutions à they
are sent back to participants participants comment on them and
reach consensus.
 Advantage: used when necessary to include a specific set of people
in a decision that are not with face to face reach, and useful when
there is a large amount of disagreement
 Disadvantage: Takes a lot of time and requires skills to develop and
analyze surveys. 27
Ringi Technique
 Ringi Technique – used to deal with controversial topics not face
to face.
A written document on problem and solution is anonymously
developed circulated among group members comment from
members are used to rewrite the document re-circulated again
until members stop writing comments.
 Disadvantage: can be slow and no guarantee group will come to an
agreement.
 Advantage: Anonymous comments allow everyone to state their
beliefs and avoid confrontation and embarrassment.
28
 Main Benefits and Problems with using
groups to make decisions
 Benefits:
.Bring more resources to a problem
· Pool their knowledge , which leads to new ideas and insights :
process gain
· Incorrect solutions are more likely to be identified and rejected
· Has motivational effects:
- encourages member to try and make good decisions and try to
perform them better
- they are more committed to a decision in which they participated
à therefore they are more likely to support in implementations
29
Main Benefits and Problems with using
groups to make decisions

Benefits
 Members benefit by gaining a better
understanding of the issues involved by
participating in discussion
· Team learns how to make decisions
· Availability of information from a variety
of  experiences
30
Problems with using groups to make
decisions
 They are less efficient at quick decision making
because suffer from process loss: discussions that are
about coordination and social issues and this wastes
time cause it prevents groups from focusing solely on
their tasks
· Communication problems:
- emotional conflicts that waste time and hurt
morale
31
Problems with using groups to make
decisions
 powerful or talkative team members can dominate
discussion
- discussions can get side tracked, interrupted, and
disorganized
· They do not pool all the knowledge available and
instead focus on knowledge that is common to all
the members.
· Make recommendations rather than a decision
32
Factors that cause group decisions to be
superior to individual decisions
 Group Composition
- Heterogeneous members with complementary skills
make for superior group decisions and diversity of opinion
 GoodCommunication
Successful pools of knowledge and ideas of the group
 Need for Groups to Make Decisions
 Since
groups are  used for tasks that are too complex for
one person
  33
Thank you

34