Group Decision Making & Leadership: Advantages, Disadvantages, and Stress Management
Group Decision Making
Advantages
- Groups make better decisions.
- More vigilant than individuals.
- Generate more ideas (diversity).
- Evaluate ideas better: processing power, checks & balances.
- Moderate extreme positions.
- Decision acceptance/commitment: increased understanding, important to implementation.
Disadvantages
- Less efficient (time, process losses).
- Conflict: politics, individuals protecting ideology, compromises between extreme points.
- Domination: sub-groups/coalitions, individuals dominating discussion.
Groupthink
- Pressure decreases mental efficiency, reality testing, moral judgment.
Groups & Risks
- Risky shift.
- Conservative shift.
- Depends on initial position: polarization.
- Discussion generates ideas/arguments not previously considered.
- Discuss “more” or “better”.
- Group members as “like others” but more extreme; adopt more extreme positions to “sell self”.
- Computer communication = greater shifts.
Rational Decision Making Model: Solution Evaluation
- Need data to evaluate, justification.
- People overconfident.
- If decision is bad: cognitive dissonance, excuses, justifications.
Sunk Costs
- Permanent losses because of a decision.
- Establishment of commitment.
- “Throwing good resources after bad.” E.g., Concorde.
- Changing mind = weakness. E.g., Gambler.
- “Chasing losses.” E.g., Vietnam/Iraq wars.
- Competitive escalation.
- Time pressure, rivalry, interested audience, desire to be first to act.
Escalation of Commitment
- The tendency to repeat an apparently bad decision or allocate more resources to a failing course of action. E.g., Taurus project at the London Stock Exchange. Originally had a £6 million budget, but the Exchange eventually spent more than £400 million before the project was abandoned.
Hindsight Bias
- Review process to sell what worked (in case of success) or didn’t (in case of failure) instead of looking for contrary evidence (e.g., luck).
- Take a stupid risk that pays off. People take personal responsibility for successful outcomes (internal locus of control) and deny responsibility for poor outcomes (external locus).
Emotion
- Short-term feelings. E.g., Angry CEOs.
- Escalation of commitment (increase in risk-taking).
- Negative mood (fear, anger) + arousal = risk-taking.
- Negative mood (e.g., sadness) + increased arousal = decrease in risk-taking.
Mood
- Mild, unfocused, long-term positive/negative feelings.
- Positive mood: remember positive information, evaluate objects/people/events positively, overestimate likelihood of good events, adopt shortcut-based decision-making (less rational), increase in creative, intuitive decision-making.
- Negative mood: opposite of positive mood.
Stress Reactions
Behavioral
…
Psychological Reactions
- Defense mechanisms: reducing anxiety from stress.
- Rationalization: attribute socially acceptable motives for stress responses. E.g., stealing.
- Displacement: direct negative emotion to “safe target.” E.g., angry at boss, rage at cat.
- Reaction formation: conforming.
- Compensation: apply skills in one area to make up for failures in another. E.g., bad teacher, more research.
Physiological Reactions
- Compromised immune functioning (cortisol).
- Inflammation, heart disease.
- Inequality, status differences.
- Snowballing effect of stress.
- Those most vulnerable (working poor) experience the most stress and have the poorest health.
Managing Stress
Job Redesign
- Reduce responsibility for overloaded workers.
- Provide more autonomy (service): decrease stress, decrease burnout.
- Avoid excessive monitoring.
- Job enrichment/redesign.
Family-Friendly HR Policies
- Formalized social support (daycare).
- Material support.
- Increased flexibility (telecommuting, flextime).
Stress Management Programs
- Meditation/yoga, time management training.
- Positive training, i.e., stress (satisficing).
Transformational Leadership
- A leadership perspective that explains how leaders change teams or organizations by creating, communicating, and modeling a shared vision, and inspiring employees to strive for that vision.
Transactional Leadership
- Leadership that helps organizations achieve their current objectives more effectively, such as by linking job performance to valued rewards and ensuring that employees have the resources needed to get the job done. E.g., “I will have a new hospital built in your town if you vote for me.”
Managerial Leadership
- A leadership perspective stating that effective leaders help employees improve their performance and well-being in the current situation.