There are several group discussion pitfalls that affect the actual quality of team decision

making and hence impact the team synergy in decision making.

WE covered following three concepts very briefly in class due to time

constraints which are also important to understand when you make decisions
in group.

Shared Information Bias

Along with social decision scheme and leadership style there are multiple other issues
which impact team decision making.
The phenomenon that impact team decision making prominently is shared information
bias.
“Group spend too much of their discussion time examining shared information –details
that two or more group members know in common – rather than unshared information.”

When group members are motivated by a desire to reach closure (e.g.,

a desire imposed by time constraints),

their bias for discussing shared information is stronger. However, if

members are concerned with making the best decision possible, this
bias becomes less salient.

The shared information bias is strongest for group members working on

ambiguous, judgment-oriented tasks because their goal is to reach consensual
agreement than to distinguish a correct solution.
Some group members tend to seek group support for their own personal opinions.

This psychological motivation to garner collective acceptance of one's own initial views
has been linked to group preferences for shared information during decision making
activities.
Generally members are motivated to establish and maintain reputations, to secure tighter
bonds, and to compete for success against other group members.

As a result, individuals tend to be selective when disclosing information to other group

members.
Several strategies can be employed to reduce group focus on discussing shared
information:

1. Make effort to spend more time actively discussing collective decisions.

2. Make effort to avoid generalized discussions by increasing the diversity of
opinions within the group.
3. Introduce the discussion of a new topic to avoid returning to previously
discussed items among members.
 4. Technology (e.g., group decision support systems, GDSS) can also offer group
members a way to catalog information that must be discussed.

Before that, we also discussed the concept of group polarization.

Group Polarization
It is “the tendency to respond in a more extreme way when making a choice or expressing
an opinion as part of a group, as opposed to when responding individually”.
Evidences for both cautious shift along with risky shift phenomenon are available.
For a group engaging in group discussion for making some choice, the average post-
group response will tend to be more extreme in the same direction as the average of the
pre-group responses.
Group polarization is not always bad.
Group amplifying group shared tendencies could be positive in some decisions such as
creativity and innovation.

Group Think
Groupthink is a “psychological phenomenon that occurs within a group of people, in
which the desire for harmony or conformity in the group results in an irrational or
dysfunctional decision-making outcome”.
Group members try to minimize conflict and reach a consensus decision without critical
evaluation of alternative viewpoints, by actively suppressing dissenting viewpoints, and
by isolating themselves from outside influences.
Loyalty to the group requires individuals to avoid raising controversial issues or
alternative solutions, and there is loss of individual creativity, uniqueness and
independent thinking.
The dysfunctional group dynamics produces an "illusion of invulnerability" (an inflated
certainty that the right decision has been made).
Thus the "in-group" significantly overrates its own abilities in decision-making, and
significantly underrates the abilities of its opponents (the "out-group").
Furthermore, groupthink can produce dehumanizing actions against the
"outgroup". Antecedent factors such as group cohesiveness, faulty group structure, and
situational context (e.g., community panic) play into the likelihood of whether or not
groupthink will impact the decision-making process.

Some solutions

1. The leader should assign the role of critical evaluator to each member.
 2. The leader should avoid stating preferences and expectations at the outset.
3. Each member of the group should routinely discuss the groups' deliberations
with a trusted associate and report back to the group on the associate's
reactions.
4. One or more experts should be invited to each meeting on a staggered basis
and encouraged to challenge views of the members.
5. At least one member should be given the role of devil's advocate (to question
assumptions and plans)
6. The leader should make sure that a sizeable block of time is set aside to
survey warning signals.

Together managers need to keep in mind following important concepts while making
decisions in team.

Module VI

In this module we studied 11 Proactive Influence Tactics, 6 Principles of Persuasion and

using Pygmalion effect in bringing out the best performance.

we began the session by discussing Gary Yukl's research on proactive influence tactics.

Proactive Influence Tactics

Influence is the power and the ability to personally affect others’ actions, decisions, opinions, or
thinking. Influence is important because it achieves desirable outcomes. You can use your influence to
communicate your personal or your team’s or your organization’s vision. Skillful influencing can align the
efforts of others in the organization, build commitment to the work, and expand the organization’s capacity
to meet its challenges.

Your attempt to influence can produced varied outcomes. The least desirable outcome is resistance to the
request you are making. Compliance is better than resistance, and it is often the level of response you need
to ensure that another person takes action in a required way. But when your influence efforts result in
commitment, you have succeeded in presenting sufficient reasons to secure voluntary. When you are able
to influence someone to the level of commitment, you receive several advantages:

1. There is less need to monitor progress toward your goals or fight resistance to them
2. There is greater sustained effort, which is particularly important when the tasks involved are
complex or difficult and require a concentrated effort over a long period of time.
3. Because committed people endorse your objectives, they tend to be more efficient, creative,
resilient, and focused toward your shared goal.
4. Working relationships improvement
Influence Tactics

Most of the time, when you make a simple request, people are likely to carry it out provided that it does not
negatively affect them. If your request is clearly legitimate, relevant to their work, and something they know
how to do, resistance will probably be minimal. Selecting and developing a broader set of influencetactics
becomes more important when your request is perceived as unpleasant, inconvenient, or inconsistent with
the other person’s goals, values, or intentions. If it is not immediately obvious to other people that complying
with your request is necessary, it can be particularly difficult to influence their actions toward that end.

Gary Yukl describes 11 proactive tactics that are commonly used by leaders and the conditions in which
they are most likely to be successful. The findings are supported by studies involving the use of several
different research methods.