Aligning for Rational Team Decisions – Advice from Daniel Kahneman

Human bias is a feature, not a bug. But it may lead us astray when making choices. The late Nobel Laureate Daniel Kahneman offers a simple yet powerful solution.

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Derailing Decisions

Have you ever witnessed a methodical decision-making process devolve into heated arguments, with people defending positions? Despite agreed-upon criteria, team members often drift towards unmentioned agendas. The discussion becomes disconnected, obscuring the focus.

Insight

Kahneman reminds us that biases form our views and behaviors. While these biases have aided human evolution, they can limit our capacities to logically understand complex decision-making scenarios. To deal with bias, rational decisions require effort, mental skill and discipline

Solution

Kahneman offers a solution: Align expertise around the criteria, not options. Evaluate each criterion on its own and across the options.

Consider a firm deciding on a new product development. Criteria benefit to customer processes, development costs, production costs, fit with product line etc. The approach:

• Assign a sub-team to each of the criteria to assess all the options solely with this criterion,
• Have each sub team present their findings to the whole team for discussion and validation,
• Only then does the whole team assemble the total picture for each of the options, validating and adjusting the assessments.

Benefits

This approach helps everyone to adopt several perspectives. It encourages thinking in an exploratory, not defensive mode. It leads to responsible suggestions. It allows for deep expertise. The double loop discussions open space for iterations. This method is easy to practice. It advances decision quality.

Practice

Yet, this approach is rarely implemented. Why?

Do teams shy away from splitting up to make responsible suggestions? ?

In memory of Daniel Kahneman, give this method a try in your next major decision-making meeting. Observe the transformation in your team’s decision-making capabilities.