Task 3 - Decision making issues – uncertainty, biases, in personal and group decision making

When writing this task we were asked to consider both personal and group decision making.

First we should consider personal decision making and the theories and practices that encompasses that. I decided to do a bit of academic research for this task and found a number of interesting articles that covered many aspects of decision making covered in class. There was one particular blog post I found that while not a direct contributor to decision making per se, it does open the mind to some interesting concepts that I believe influence us as individuals and when working in a tight knit group. 

This particular article is taken from Poor Richards Almanack and discusses the theory that if two or more people spend enough time together they begin to form joint neurological patterns of behaviour and thought (Poor Richard's Almanack 2.0, 2014). This is best expressed by way of knowing what a person will say before they say it or being able to finish another person's sentence for them. This suggests that while we may be happily making our own personal decisions, we may in effect be merely expressing the thoughts of the group or a significant other.



I recently had to make a decision to accept or turn down a particular contract for my company. While there were many stakeholders in the decision, it was ultimately my responsibility and the outcome mine to own. I must admit I felt somewhat uncomfortable and had very little time to sort through all the outcomes. As discussed by (Finucane et al., 2000) and (Peters et al., 2006), the perceived risks and benefits of a decided outcome can play a substantial role on the decision that we make. Even to the point where one can subconsciously frame outcomes into a more favourable light in order for the choice to be steered into a particular direction.

In order to avoid this kind of action I decided to take the process back to a more fundamental review of the facts and see if a decision would present itself. In this instance, to accept the contract on the basis of the agreement would have compromised the project methodology and the primary function of the services department. Alternatively, to not accept would mean giving up revenue. Although the methodology is able to be tailored, it is not open for compromise of its core values, being the successful delivery of projects to within given tolerances, neither is deviating from core business strategy of providing solutions not just body shopping. Now the decision has been made and I have had to defend my position to my superiors, I am able to do so on the premise of my argument that framed the outcome of the decision process.

The main discussion around group think was the distortions that are at play and which one I am most mindful of. Personally I am most disturbed by the lack of performance and innovation, however recent studies have shown that there are steps that can be taken to prevent these distortions. In their 2014 paper Thürmer, Wieber and Gollwitzer suggest that by clearly defining the expectations and planning upfront controls such as decision points or toll gates, many of the pitfalls surrounding small groups can be avoided or lessened (Thürmer, Wieber and Gollwitzer, 2014).

References

Finucane, M., Alhakami, A., Slovic, P. and Johnson, S. (2000). The affect heuristic in judgments of risks and benefits. Journal of behavioral decision making, 13(1), pp.1--17.

Peters, E., Vastfjall, D., Garling, T. and Slovic, P. (2006). Affect and decision making: A "hot" topic. Journal of Behavioral Decision Making, 19(2), pp.79--85.

Poor Richard's Almanack 2.0, (2014). Human Broadband Connections. [online] Available at: http://almanac2010.wordpress.com/2014/05/14/human-broadband-connections/ [Accessed 9 Sep. 2014].

Thürmer, J., Wieber, F. and Gollwitzer, P. (2014). Collective action control by goals and plans: applying a self-regulation perspective to group performance. Journal of Behavioral Decision Making.