Overcoming Groupthink: 3 Tips For Better, Faster Decision Making

When it comes to making high-stake decisions in a team of leaders, there are a ton of roadblocks that can damage the process. The most detrimental? 

Groupthink.

“When a group of well-intentioned people make irrational or non-optimal decisions spurred by the urge to conform or the discouragement of dissent.” Psychology Today

Usually fuelled by wanting to reach consensus quickly, groupthink situations can have wayward effects on an organisation’s bottom line.

Group decision-making at the highest level

When Larry Page became Google’s CEO back in 2011, he famously sent a company-wide email stating that every decision meeting from then on, had to fit new criteria:

●      One clear decision-maker. If there’s no decision-maker, or no decision to be made, the meeting shouldn’t happen

●      No more than 10 people should attend

●      Every person should give input, or they shouldn’t be there 

For Jeff Bezos at Amazon, the key to quality decision-making is always high-velocity. In his 2016 Letter to Shareholders, he shared:

“High-velocity decisions are easier for startups and very challenging for large organisations. The senior team at Amazon is determined to keep our decision-making velocity high. Speed matters in business – plus a high-velocity decision-making environment is more fun too.”

Whether you go down Page’s route by identifying a clear decision-maker, or Bezos’ insistence on reaching decisions faster, one thing is crystal clear. 

Group decision-making needs a strategy.

Here are three tips to help you overcome groupthink and build a more powerful decision-making process.

1.   Disagree, but commit anyway

No matter how healthy the dynamics of a team might be, there will be times where everyone simply won’t agree. To get those high-stakes decisions done and dusted, do as Jeff Bezos does and encourage the team to “disagree and commit”. 

That means the person making the decision has the trust of everyone involved—and the team can support the decision—even when they don’t agree with it.

2.   Take a Clarity Break

As a general rule of thumb, leaders should be working on their business, not in it. 

Like most difficult tasks, making decisions as a leader means you need clarity and confidence in order to do your best work. Get out of the office regularly for some solitary thinking time so you can take a step back and look at your business from the outside.

Taking that regular pause will help you block out all those factors clouding your judgement or making you stall on that decision. You can listen to your gut, tune out the day-to-day chaos and come back with a fresher mind. 

Figure out a cadence that works for you—it might be 30 minutes a day or a couple of hours a week, just consciously schedule that time in so you won’t be tempted to skip it when things get busy (as they always will).

3.   Embrace 36 hours of pain, then move on

If you find yourself battling with a tough decision, whether it involves client strategies, or letting go of an employee, rip the band-aid off and just do it. The longer you put off those tough calls, the more you’re hurting the productivity of your business and your teams.

36 Hours of Pain came from EOS Worldwide Founder Gino Wickman, after a friend who had let go of a long term employee had stressed about the decision for months. But once he did it, he quickly saw that the company was better off (as was the employee who had found a more suitable job). 

It took 36 hours of ‘pain’ until he could see that his decision was the right one for everyone involved. Bite the bullet. Make the tough decision and choose short-term suffering over a long one.

Fostering greater decisions with smart strategies

Decision-making doesn’t need to be painful. 

And if we can take one thing away from the world’s top leaders, it’s that regardless of status or expertise, decision making needs a well-thought-out strategy.

To come to better decisions faster, everyone should be comfortable with being accountable for the outcomes, whether they agree to the decision or not. It’s part of what it means to have a solid team that trusts each other and is willing to go forward with ideas they might not agree with.

If you’re a leader striving to make faster and better decisions, schedule a call with me and let’s talk about the tools you can start using right now to get your business where you want it to be.