Making Dumb Groups Smarter

Making Dumb Groups Smarter

How can you avoid collectives biaises that may harm the team dynamic?

Author(s): Cass R. Sunstein, Reid Hastie

Publisher: Harvard Business Review

Date of publication: 2014

Read this article on the publisher's website [Harvard Business Review]

Summary

Teams too are prone to many biases that may affect the quality of collective debate. For example, researchers have shown that without adequate safeguards, they tend to move toward more extreme positions as discussions advance. They are also highly influenced by the convictions or behavior of whoever speaks first. After reviewing these principal traps, the authors of Making Dumb Groups Smarter suggest some specific facilitation techniques to avoid falling into them.