Julia Whitney

How can we design leaders make great decisions? One good way is to draw on our richest resource: our team.

Our team’s members benefit from being included in the decision making process. They typically feel more motivated, engaged and empowered as a result. This can encourage them to stay with your team longer than they might otherwise. In the current hiring environment, this has to be a good thing!

Our decisions can benefit as well. Research shows that decisions made with a greater diversity of inputs are better. And when folks have contributed to a decision, they are more likely to act on it, and follow through.

So, all good, right? Well yes, theoretically. And even, sometimes, in practice. But probably not as often as we think, or as we would like. That’s because there’s a dark side too.

This talk is about the dirty little secrets of group decision making that risk getting in the way of all the positive potential. We’ll look at negative tendencies within group psychology and group dynamics. We’ll discuss the obstacles posed by cognitive biases. We’ll see how easy it is to succumb to groupthink. We’ll highlight how your sense of responsibility for a decision is compromised when it’s made in a group.

And then we’ll turn to the bright side. We’ll explore frameworks to help you become more conscious of your own group decision making processes. And we’ll look at how you can strengthen them, so they can work even better for you.