Question 1
Read the case study, then answer the given subquestions that follow in about 200-300 words each.
CASE INCIDENT
Negative Aspects of Collaboration?
Teams can perform well or poorly, which leaves an overriding question: Are collaboration's negative aspects so severe that we should avoid making decisions and working in teams?
Groups and teams need more time to process multiple pieces of information and coordinate what they know. Daniel Kahneman (Israeli-American psychologist, who was awarded the 2002 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences) and colleagues also warn that when committees and groups make recommendations, they’ve often “fallen in love” with a particular idea and are no longer thinking rationally. These problems of biases can be magnified when a team of people are making a decision collectively. Look no further than the U.S. Congress in recent years to see instances where a group decision-making process might lead to a worse outcome than if one consistent course of action were pursued. So what can be done to minimize these biases? The problems of coordination and collaboration suggest that we should invoke team decision-making only when it appears that pooling information will lead to better decisions than individual decision-making. Experts advise that decision-makers receiving advice from teams should always ask whether the team’s recommendations contain any self-interested biases. It’s also important to see whether the team has developed an emotional attachment to one course of action or has succumbed to groupthink. Finally, run down a checklist of the heuristics and biases we’ve described earlier in the book to see whether the group might be prone to making these decision errors.
Think about a time when you’ve been in a team that had to make a collective decision that didn’t turn out well. Discuss what the team could have done differently to arrive at a decision that worked for the team and the individuals.