Group Decision Making

WHAT:

Decision making is a very large part of teamwork. From minor details to member roles to deciding on a gameplan for the project at hand, every team needs to work together to make the right decisions that will allow them to reach their end goal. There are several ways to approach group decision making and sometimes it is even easier to have an individual make the decision when one is needed quickly. 

SO WHAT:

When a team is composed of members who can communicate well and will have meaningful discussions, it is smarter to make decisions as a team. The advantages of team or group decision making are that there is a greater sum of knowledge across multiple members; several solutions will be offered, as well as several alternatives; acceptance of the final decision increases among team members; the team as a whole has a better knowledge of the problem and the solution that they decide on. Some of the disadvantages that come along with group decision making would be a diffusion of responsibility between members, communication problems, lower efficiency, and groupthink. If for some reason the group needs to come to a decision quickly and does not have time to discuss possible outcomes, it would be smarter to allow one team member to make the decisions needed. 

The three most common approaches to group decision making are consultative, democratic, and consensus. Consultative is leader oriented and they will talk with the group members to get their opinions and then make the decision that they feel is most efficient. The democratic approach is when the team votes and the majority rules. This approach uses nominal group techniques which include having written ideas, discussion, and those ideas ranked. Lastly, the consensus approach is where the whole team participates in discussion and comes to a common decision after agreement. Once a decision is made, the team should make sure that it meets the criteria of quality, speed, and acceptance. If one of these is lacking, it might be best for the team to take a step back and see if another solution would fit these three measurements better. 

NOW WHAT:

In the future when I have the opportunity to work in groups, I will very strongly suggest using either the democratic or consensus approach. I personally believe that these are the more effective approaches because they both allow for discussion among all of the team members and it gives everyone in the group a chance to give their opinion on how the best way to go about the problem. Having discussions and giving the team members the chance to be creative and offer ideas is a great way to increase productivity and get everyone more involved. It is empowering to have your ideas discussed and thought upon for a possible solution and the more each team member is involved in this process, the more invested they will be in reaching the final goal. 

Levi, D. (2017). Group Dynamics for Teams (5th ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. ISBN: 978-1-4833-7834-3.

Nationalforum.com. (2020). Retrieved 2 April 2020, from http://www.nationalforum.com/Electronic%20Journal%20Volumes/Lunenburg,%20Fred%20C.%20Group%20Decision%20Making%20NFTEJ%20V20%20N3%202010.pdf.

Managing Group Decision Making | Boundless Management. Courses.lumenlearning.com. (2020). Retrieved 2 April 2020, from https://courses.lumenlearning.com/boundless-management/chapter/managing-group-decision-making/.

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