The Art, Science & Psychology Behind Decision Making — Part 1
Introduction To Decision Making
Teams, employees, leaders, entrepreneurs, athletes and families all make some sort of decision every day. Decision-making is part of every human’s experience here on earth and beyond. It could be trivial things like the clothes they wear, and the food they eat or life-changing things like which country to live in, which field of employment to go into or buying a property.
Everyone has a different way of making trivial decisions and significant decisions. Of late, due to some significant changes in my life, I’m having to think about how I make decisions. This got me thinking about the type of decision-making I see most often in the corporate world.
My experience to date, has been a mixture of different approaches to making decisions, some of which have yielded results and others haven’t. Let’s delve into the different ways of making decisions, that I have most commonly seen in the workplace.
Group Decision Making
This is more commonly seen in companies that employ a flat structure or agile methodology. Objectives and decision-making happen within small teams or squads. Senior leaders provide the context in which these teams can operate and everything else is left to the small teams to operate within the context given.
Making decisions as a group can be very powerful. The collective intelligence is utilized and this causes fewer blind spots. When deployed properly this can be a very powerful way of making decisions. Decisions or outcomes are achieved through majority voting or general group consensus.
Pros/Advantages
- The whole team or all participants feel like their voice is heard in the decision-making process.
Cons/Disadvantages
- Decisions can easily be swayed by the loudest person in the room or the person with the most influence.
- It can sometimes delay decision-making if the whole group is not available to make the decision.
- The minority can be left demotivated especially if they strongly go against the decision the group concluded on.
Jury Style Decision-Making
This is an extended form of “Group Decision Making”, the only difference is that a consensus has to be reached among all participants or team members.
Pros/Advantages
- Each disapproving participant or team member’s case is heard. This can empower each team member or individual.
- If there are different viewpoints, it can create healthy discourse. This creates great learning opportunities for all involved.
Cons/Disadvantages
- The decision-making process can take too long for everyone’s viewpoint to be heard.
- Team members or individuals can feel pressured into following the majority viewpoint.
Leader
Before agile ways of working became a thing, the traditional method of setting up teams was hierarchical. This involved a reporting line from the CEO down to the lowest rank team member of the company. Decisions in this type of team structure are top-down. The leader will sometimes consult his team members in making the decisions.
Pros/Advantages
- Decisions can be quicker since the leader of the team or department is making the decisions for the whole group.
Cons/Disadvantages
- The leader can sometimes be far removed from the details required to make the decision.
- Team members are sometimes left to execute a vision/bring a vision to life that they were not a part of forming.
Summary
The first instalment of this series has gone through the different ways in which a decision is normally made in a company. The next instalment will talk a bit more about the art, science and psychology behind the different forms of decision-making and as a leader when to deploy the different types of decision-making.
