The difference of opinions and various cultural backgrounds of individuals can often act as barriers to an effective decision-making process. Collaborative decision-making can be called a process that is inextricably connected with a wide range of potential challenges as it involves bringing various opinions into accordance to get positive results. When it comes to problems associated with the process of group decision-making, it is important to pay close attention to the situation of decision-makers and their knowledge levels. Three readings chosen for the paper refer to various problems in group decision-making.
In their research, Yang, Du, Wang, and Liang (2017) discuss problems that occur when group members evaluate potential final decisions and do not use the same criteria to guide their choices. As for my experience, I find myself in similar situations in everyday life; for instance, choosing a place to go to with friends often presents a difficult task as some of my friends are unable to agree on clear evaluation criteria beforehand. Other important problems that I am familiar with include a number of people in a group and a lack of demonstrability caused by the presence of unresolved conflicts between decision-makers. There are two extremities when it comes to forming a group of an appropriate size. Due to limitations caused by people’s personal experience and knowledge, small groups are at risk of missing important aspects when making their decisions. A reverse trend exists in groups that include too many individuals – it can be difficult for large groups to compartmentalize evaluation criteria based on their significance.
Ideas and recommendations helping to reduce the mentioned struggles include determining the most appropriate group size based on the complexity of problems to be solved. According to modern researchers who have found the link between the complexity of tasks, group size, and performance, larger groups are less likely to be effective when solving complex tasks (Amir, O., Amir, D., Shahar, Hart, & Gal, 2018). Continuing on the first problem, confusion in evaluation criteria, it is possible that including people who demonstrate critical thinking in a group and setting clear criteria prior to the process of evaluation will help to make final decisions meet the key purposes (Yang et al., 2017). In theory, determining the proper decision-making criteria should be preceded with a thorough analysis of a situation that would help to single out key aspects and define its minor details in order to sort out priorities. Apart from that, it can be supposed that this work should be performed by small subgroups that include only the most experienced members of working groups.
The existence of groupthink is also important as has a strong impact on the outcomes for groups. Personally, I experienced groupthink in situations when I was too unsure of my knowledge to present alternative ideas to other people and demonstrate their potential effectiveness. In reference to the causes of groupthink dynamic, all situations when I experienced groupthink had a few things in common. First, some members of those groups were passive and less interested in changing problematic situation than others. What is more, there was a lack of trust among group members. In order to prevent groupthink in my future experience, it can be important to make any group member feel responsible for the final result (Brecher, 2015). Also, groupthink can be caused by difficult relationships between group members; therefore, to reduce it, I would encourage people in a group to switch off from their relationships when evaluating each other’s ideas.
References
Amir, O., Amir, D., Shahar, Y., Hart, Y., & Gal, K. (2018). The more the merrier? Increasing group size may be detrimental to decision-making performance in nominal groups. PloS One, 13(2), e0192213.
Brecher, N. D. (2015). Breaking bad: Stop deceptive groupthink. Journal of Property Management, 80(6), 45-46.
Yang, Q., Du, P. A., Wang, Y., & Liang, B. (2017). A rough set approach for determining weights of decision makers in group decision making. PloS One, 12(2), e0172679.