Aisha has been asked to organize a team of managers to make decisions regarding some key issues within her company. She has been given a very tight timeline and is concerned about the impacts of cognitive bias and groupthink. Aisha is familiar with techniques such as devil's advocacy and dialectical inquiry and knows they can help combat these issues, but she feels they would take too much time. What advice would you give Aisha about choosing group members?

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

Another way to improve group decision making is to promote diversity in decision-making groups. Bringing together managers of both genders from various ethnic, national, and functional backgrounds broadens the range of life experiences and opinions that group members can draw on as they generate, assess, and choose among alternatives. Moreover, diverse groups are sometimes less prone to groupthink because group members already differ from each other and thus are less subject to pressures for uniformity.