Why Teams Make Bad Decisions

Most of us have been in a meeting where the most talkative (or most assertive) person in the room takes up the majority of the conversational space. Meanwhile, those who are soft-spoken or less willing to challenge others may say little or even remain completely silent despite having important ideas and information to share.

As this common experience demonstrates, our behavior in groups is heavily influenced by our personalities. The Big Five model, long considered the gold standard in personality research,³ provides a helpful framework for understanding these interpersonal dynamics—and why they may end up being suboptimal during decision-making. Specifically, two of the Big Five personality traits come into play here: extraversion and agreeableness. According to the model, extraversion is a measure of how sociable, gregarious, and excitement-seeking you tend to be. Agreeableness, on the other hand, is a measure of how empathetic, altruistic, and cooperative you usually are.²

Those higher in extraversion tend to talk more than those low in this trait, especially in group settings. Additionally, as you can see from our PersonalityMap tool, which provides access to one million human correlations (the measurements of relationships between these traits), extraversion is associated with higher charisma and enjoyment of attention.⁵ For these reasons, extroverts tend to have a bigger influence on what teams discuss—and therefore think and decide. Of course, there is nothing wrong with extroverts expressing their opinions; they are likely to be just as valuable as anyone else's. Rather, the challenge here is that this may leave less room for introverted voices to be heard.

Another Big Five personality trait that is relevant to group dynamics is agreeableness. Those who are more agreeable are less likely to be assertive and to challenge the perspective of others when they have a different opinion. For instance, in one study we conducted at ClearerThinking.org, those high in agreeableness reported being much less likely to “contradict others”—meaning they may struggle to express their ideas, especially when they are out of sync with what others have already said.

It’s worth stressing the value of having team members with differing personalities, as these can lead to a wide array of skill sets and perspectives. But, as we've seen, these differences can also present challenges. So, what can be done to guarantee that all the valuable perspectives are heard? Here are two potential solutions that can be helpful if you're a leader or manager aiming to avoid these sorts of biases in your meetings:

1. Hold an asynchronous commenting period prior to the group meeting so that those who are less comfortable speaking up or challenging others can still communicate their perspective.
2. Remind those who don't speak up that you value their opinion, and ask if they have any thoughts they'd like to share (without putting pressure on them to speak if they aren't ready to do so).

If you're curious about your own level of extraversion and agreeableness—which may help you understand how you interact within groups—you can find out what they are for free with the Ultimate Personality Test.

Sometimes, when the majority of a team is ostensibly trying to make the best choice, some members are playing an entirely different game: trying to look good in front of everyone else (or, at least, avoid looking bad).

When people are in a group, status dynamics—where we adjust our actions based on perceptions of social prestige, power, likability, and respect—are almost impossible to avoid.¹ Some people even take this to an extreme, allowing much of their behavior in groups to be dictated by what they think will raise (or at least preserve) their status. This shouldn't be so surprising thanks to thousands of years of evolutionary history. The placement of our ancestors within groups had important implications for whether they survived and passed down their genetics to the next generation—leaving us with deeply rooted instincts related to social hierarchy. This is especially the case when it comes to trying to make sure that high-status members of a group like us and view us as being on their side.

When it comes to the workplace, this means we usually want to be liked by our boss and may be more likely to say we agree with a popular coworker (even if we don’t). At the same time, we may be quicker to challenge the views of those that we perceive as being of lower status or disliked by others to make ourselves look better.

Friendship dynamics among co-workers are another important factor to consider. We often want the colleagues that we consider our friends to look good in front of others, so we may be reluctant to contradict them in front of the rest of the group. Not only that, but we may be more supportive of their ideas than we would be if we personally liked them less.

Unfortunately, both those with higher status and those we feel an affinity for don't necessarily have better ideas than our other team members. This focus on status dynamics rather than sound reasoning can lead a team to settle on bad choices. Many of us have had the unfortunate experience where the most powerful person in the room has a bad idea—only to witness others (or even ourselves) readily go along with it. Or perhaps we have seen a great idea from a lower-status co-worker get outright ignored, with the focus immediately redirected toward what the higher-status people have to say.

While status dynamics can't be avoided entirely, there are simple solutions that can reduce their potentially disastrous effects on team decision-making:

1. Use the beginning of the meeting to weigh both the pros and cons of potential solutions with team members, rather than letting leaders spearhead these discussions. Only once each option has been discussed should the conversation turn to which one comes out on top. This gives group members space to form their own conclusions prior to knowing which solutions higher-ups support.
2. As The Decision Lab has highlighted in prior work, anonymous voting can help groups reduce bias related to status dynamics. With public voting, many participants may end up considering not just what they think about the topic at hand but also how they think they will be perceived based on what they vote for. Meanwhile, anonymous voting avoids these dynamics since nobody will know which option each person voted for.

In theory, it seems like a group should be less biased than the individuals who make it up since they can point out each other’s blind spots. Sometimes, bias correction does occur—such as when people genuinely ask others in a group for critical feedback on their performance. However, unfortunately, research on group polarization has found that team members often end up with more extreme positions when they have discussions in groups compared to their initial, individual viewpoints.⁴

Why might this be the case?

For one, those with more extreme views may be more likely to speak up. For instance, one study on social media users found a link between the extremity of views on a topic and how often people posted on social media about it.⁶ This can have disastrous consequences in a group setting because if you have only heard from your colleagues about the merits of extreme views, you are more likely to be swayed into thinking that they’re a good idea. 

Suppose, for instance, that in a meeting about what to do about a company's aging software code base, the only ones who bother to speak up are those engineers who are extremely annoyed about the problem. They advocate for throwing away all the code and re-writing it from scratch. Those less annoyed don't bother to chime in, so you don't get to hear more moderate opinions on the topic, such as how a gradual rewrite of the codebase may be much more economical than taking a large dip into the company’s budget.

An additional reason for group polarization may be that when the group seems to be moving one way in a decision, there can be a social reward for expressing agreement with the apparent group consensus. This creates an artificial sense that everyone agrees—which may cause other group members to express even more agreement. This mechanism can be a cause of groupthink and conformity.

Even the order in which people express opinions may matter. As the late Nobel prize winner, Daniel Kahneman, put it when I interviewed him about this topic: “The second person to speak is strongly influenced by the first… you can think of what happens when a bunch of people come to a film, and you love the film. But the first person to speak says, ‘Oh, that was terrible.’ You are not going to be as unequivocal about saying you love the film as you would have been otherwise.”

The problem is that once one opinion has been offered (and especially if it's a very strong opinion), now there are social effects that come into play when you go to provide your own. If you contradict the original opinion, you may worry that it will offend the first speaker or cause them to feel at odds with you. Of course, there are ways to handle this gracefully, but even this possibility can cause the next speaker to moderate their opinion or not bother to contribute to the conversation at all.

So, what strategies can be useful to avoid mutually reinforcing polarization in groups?

1. Make sure that the group doesn't jump to a consensus too quickly by having representatives of each viewpoint present their perspectives prior to group discussion occurring. This can help prevent a false consensus where everyone assumes that others support a particular position simply because those who are speaking now seem to support it, and those who disagree remain silent.
2. Use Red Teaming—a method whereby some group members are assigned to look for and report on flaws in the group's approach or conclusions. Then their findings can be discussed and incorporated by the group.

As we've seen, there are a number of challenges that can prevent team decisions from being better than individual ones. We’ve also discussed how group decisions can be improved by strategies addressing common pitfalls during meetings.

But, sometimes, the best way to avoid group decision-making failures is not to make decisions as a group at all. For instance, a leader can be tasked with making the decision—while being sure to discuss the topic in one-on-one meetings with everyone who has relevant information or an important perspective to share. This leader then takes into account the diversity of perspectives but ultimately decides on their own what the best course of action is.

Of course, there are still many situations where it's desirable to make decisions as a group.

So, what does effective group decision-making look like? It means that:

• The group does not jump to a conclusion too quickly
• Each plausible solution is considered thoughtfully by members
• Everyone who has something valuable to share provides their input
• The quality of the potential options is prioritized, rather than social dynamics

By applying the strategies we've discussed in this article when they are relevant—such as by using anonymous voting, an asynchronous commenting period, providing each person with time to speak, and making sure that each solution is discussed before deciding which is best—the groups that you are a part of may be able to make substantially better decisions.