Group Decision Making
Today I am going to talk about “Group Decision Making”, which can be found in Chapter 9: Foundations of Group Behavior, on page 242 in the 16th edition. I think that group decision-making is the situation that occurs very often in the workplace. Moreover, this situation has the ability to impact the overall effectiveness of any decision-making process.
When employees concentrate on making a collective choice it can be very challenging because of the personality clashes. The main challenge is the fact that each employee has his or her own vision regarding a particular situation or issue (Saaty 22). As a result, a group is unable to come up with an ideal solution that can be sound to the vision of every member. One of the most important causes of such situations is when a group consists of members with different levels of expertise. This has a psychological effect because those who has a higher expertise level consider their ideas to be the most suitable. In order to avoid personality clashes during the group decision-making process, it is important to ensure that the members of the group are equal in terms of their knowledge and professional experiences. Moreover, it is also important to provide a group with a supervisor who has more experience in order to ensure the decision that the group takes is effective and can contribute to the growth and development of an organization.
Collaborative decision making has two important advantages over individual decision making. These advantages are the ability to share knowledge and information and synergy which provide a greater effect because of ensuring interaction between employees. However, groupthink is the main disadvantage of collaborative decision making because it supports personality clashes. However, if managed effectively any group can achieve positive results in the process of decision making.
Works Cited
Saaty, Thomas. Group decision making: drawing out and reconciling differences. RWS Publications, …
