Navigate team decisions

- When you are making a decision, when you are choosing between possible options for solving a problem, should you make the decision on your own, or should you consult other people? Well, consulting others does take longer, and some leaders think it makes them look weak. But even if you're cleverer and more experienced than the others, which might be why you're the boss, you will still get a better decision if you consult other people. So you should, if you possibly can. There's an effect called the wisdom of the crowd, which says that if you want to estimate the number of, say, coins in a jar or the cost of a project, or the profit from an investment, the more people you ask, the more accurate the answer will be. If you can get 100 friends to estimate the coins in the jar, and then you take an average, it will be spot on. In fact, just 10 people will get it pretty good. Probably good enough to win the competition. This is because some of your friends will underestimate, and some will overestimate. So the average will be close to the correct number. And the more friends you involve, the less chance that many more than half of them will be over or under. It'll be increasingly likely to be spot on 50/50. Just like tossing a coin three times could be all heads, but 300 times is going to be very near to 150 heads and 150 tails. So involve a good number of people in your decisions. But there is a problem with asking groups, which is known as risky shift. If you don't get them to estimate numbers anonymously, but ask them as a group, the group will tend to take more risky decisions. And this is because no one person has to take responsibility if the plan goes wrong. And also, the more vocal risk-taking people tend to overpower the quieter, more careful ones. It can even be so serious that the people who are worried about risks feel bad about speaking up in case they're viewed as negative. Teams make more risky decisions because they have shared accountability, and the risk takers tend to be more vocal and more dominant. So the solution is to make sure that the risks are given fair consideration. It's also a good idea to go around the room and ask everyone for their opinion, including the quiet ones. So they all have to have their say. You could also have a separate section on what might go wrong so it definitely gets considered and not forgotten in all the excitement of the plan. So to sum up, involve as many people as you can in your decisions, especially if they involve judgment or estimation of numbers. But make sure that they either don't confer, or if they do, that you don't get risky shift. Counter this by having a black hat wearer asking everyone what they think and having a separate section on what might go wrong. Which of these ideas could you use on the decisions that you are currently considering?