Overcoming Group Dysfunction: How to fix common obstacles for better decision-making.

• Author: Harward, Brian
• Position: RETHINKING BUDGETING

Making decisions in groups is an integral part of a public finance officer's job. However, group decision-making tends to have unique and predictable shortcomings that threaten to derail decision-making on everything from staff meetings to budget discussions with the public. Low quality or group decisions leave people feeling that the decision-making process and/ or the decisions reached were flawed. This will not support perceptions of the process or its outcomes being fair. *

HALO EFFECT

Strong voices and personalities can have undue influence and drown out quieter people. Charismatic people, proven performers, and physically attractive people may influence groups more due to the halo effect, in which positive attributes of the person lead to their ideas being more compelling than they merit. (1)

EXAMPLE: Elected officials or revered experts in the office might dominate the conversation, with others unwilling to challenge them because of their position or perceived expertise.

SILENCE

In unstructured conversations, strong personalities and those more aggressive in entering the conversation will get to speak. Meanwhile, quiet, timid, awkward people often remain silent. However, the bigger personalities do not always have the best ideas, and the best outcome is hearing all ideas. (2)

EXAMPLE: The financial officer is in a meeting with other administrators and has an idea for making a proposed budget more equitable. Some people don't get a chance to speak before time runs out because another administrator, who has composed these budgets for years, dominates the conversation, only interrupted by the politicians in the room willing to interrupt.

SOCIAL LOAFING

When there are more people in a group, any single individual feels less need to contribute because other people will pick up the stack. Known as social loafing and related to diffusion of responsibility, people generate lower quantity and quality of ideas while assuming the rest of the group will complete the work. (3)

EXAMPLE: While considering areas where budgets can be cut, the group mentions five or six areas with potential for reduction. As a result, one team member feels that is enough choices and stops thinking about it and fails to recall that they just came across an outdated project that could be ended with minimal harm.

ANCHORING

Ideas presented first, or people speaking first, often set an anchor from which the rest of the discussion develops. People with vastly different...