Advantages Of Group Decision Making

The purpose of this article was to evaluate the impact that directive leaders, participative leaders, and devil’s advocates can have on group decision making – particularly the overall quality of the final decision, the process of the group decision making, and five groupthink symptoms for decision making groups. Experimenters directly manipulated the style of leadership being applied as well as devil’s advocacy in comparison to previous studies which also separately observed these same aspects of group decision making. This experiment also included measurements of the objective and subjective outcomes of group decision making by including the quality of the decision, the amount of disagreements before a group decision was reached, and any

Groupthink was created by Irving Janis in 1972. (Shore, 2010, p.3) He created this method to prevent teams from making bad decisions. Irving Janis went to Yale and began his research on groupthink there. At Yale, he researched why a team could make such an excellent decision one time and a horrible one the next time. (Shore, 2010, p.3) Since groupthink was created, it has been used in many instances without even knowing about it. Such as, the Cuban missile crisis, France’s defeat in the 1940 campaign, and the Challenger space shuttle incident.

Randy Hirokawa and Dennis Gouran developed the Functional Perspective on Group Decision Making theory to “offer practical advice on how participants can act to ensure better group decisions” (Hirokawa, 1999, p. 170). They believe that as long as the members in a group care about the issue and are reasonably intelligent, the group interaction will have a positive effect on the final decision. In order for a group to reach a high-quality solution, Hirokawa and Gouran believe the group 's decision-making process needs to fulfill four task requirements they refer to as requisite functions of effective decision making. "Three core assumptions define the functional perspective: (1) groups are goal oriented; (2) group performance varies in quality and quantity, and can be evaluated; and (3) internal and external factors influence group performance via the interaction process.” (Wittenbaum, 2004 p. 19).

To close the gap between actual and desired performance, decisions need to be made. Decision making involves making a selection from among alternative courses of action. Implementation and evaluation of the implementation provide feedback into the next cycle of group decision making.

Decision making is affected by the Group Think because of the lack of openness that should be displayed and offered by everyone involved. The development of the organization is dependent on the ability of the group to make decisions that are thought through and not made solely on pressures and accepted or narrow minded ways that are not thought out.

From my experience, one situation I can think of where the “groupthink” phenomenon could be applied happened when I used to be a scribe/scribe trainer. Our leads had just hired a new group of scribes and prior to starting on the floor the trainees needed to complete a classroom training course covering medical terminology, understanding of the EMR template and then pass an examination. After that then they were able to start training shifts on the floor with an experienced scribe “shadowing” them. The first time scribing on the floor can be really daunting because some providers work very fast and they can be very particular (quality/length of HPI, what& where to document certain findings) which as a newbie you wouldn’t know unless you worked

Furthermore, research suggests that conflict in the decision making process promotes creativity amongst group members (Nemeth 1986), higher levels of commitment and satisfaction from group members (Peterson 1999), and group members become more knowledgeable about the interests of their co workers (Peterson 2007). In comparison to the first simulation, this result was evident in the second attempt. On the other hand, the decision making process was time consuming. Luckily, there were no time constraints, however, towards the end of the task, group members including myself, became tiresome and overworked. Eventually, I began to lose control of my group and those with the most useful information provided to them during the simulation began to

To add on to what Rachel said, groupthink can also occur if the leader is well respected or persuasive. It does have it pros and cons. If used properly the group can come to a solution with everyone contributing. It gives everyone of a sense if worth because they contributed. A con can be peer pressure as when everyone agrees on one solution. This leads mental inefficiency and decrease in moral judgement. As some patients may just go with everyone says in order to avoid conflict. If you want to avoid groupthink then you can have an outsider come in and question the views of the members or or assign the role of critical evaluator to each member of the group.

There are two threats to team effectiveness. First, the Asch effect, when an individual’s judgement is distorted by an incorrect but unanimous opposition, and second, group think, when a cohesive in-group members choose unanimity over appraisal of alternative courses of action (Kreitner & Kinicki, 2013, pp. 290, 292). Diversity is important to mitigate the Asch effect and group think.

When reviewing the concepts of groupthink, it is important for one to realize that not all group based decisions are necessarily bad decisions. The concept of groupthink and the negative results that arise are based on the reality that group decisions are made without regard to alternative measures, validity of information, or risks and consequences associated with such decisions. Groupthink seems to dispatch the critical thinking skills of the individuals in the process and decisions made can have disastrous results. The following essay will discuss the results of groupthink decisions made by the United States government that lead to Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, as well as critical errors made by US command that greatly increased the impact

Throughout life there are many instances in which an individual has to work in a group to complete a task/project. The importance of group work is to have teamwork with each member of the group. Humans are driven to connect with each other and by working as a group ideas become much more enriched and the ideas or thoughts that each person ‘brings to the table’ each individual is able to add onto that idea or it can trigger one to think of something completely different.

First, I describe the concept of groupthink. According to one journal, ‘The concept of groupthink is quite popular nowadays and has considerable practical value, because it not only is at variance with research results that indicate the performance of highly cohesive groups (e.g., Keller, 1986), but also provides a detailed description of how an important problem in cohesive decision-making groups occurs’. (Joseph M, p.229). Groupthink sometime leads group big mistakes. If people consider things by a group, they may come to the wrong answer even though that thing is so simply when people think alone. It is because people tend not to doubt the result found by everyone and hesitate to raise an objection to the proposal. These tendencies are kinds of characteristics of groupthink. The former is illusion of unanimity and the latter is self censorship. Why that tendency is happened? In my opinion, people think in the back of their mind ‘I don’t have to take all responsibility because this conclusion

Antecedent factors such asgroup 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

An important part of our learning and growing experience must stem from our ability to analyze and reflect upon the groups that we have been members in. This reflection can define our understanding of the weaknesses both in ourselves and in the others within our group; and it can help to shape the way that we act in future groups. Adjusting ourselves to compensate for our weaknesses, based upon an honest and thorough examination of our actions within a group setting, is one of most important thing for any person to do. It is only through this evaluation that we can improve ourselves and our interactions with others. This paper will examine a group that was required to make an important decision about adding a new member

Groupthink plays a huge role throughout his presidency because he was challenged to make critical, constructive decisions for his foreign policy. Before he made the decision to invade Cuba it created a conflict of interest, he was not alone in the decision, there were other groups of men who also have the same similarities of both backgrounds and personality. People are afraid to express their views on reality and how one person can dominate the discussion and impose their point of view that an individual can feel powerful and be effective on their own decision making processes. Janis describes what happens when a group of bad decisions come into play they feel too over confident that they lose contact with reality and have others feel excluded.