Group Decision Making Process - Essay Example

Group Decision Making Process The success of our group in resulted due to numerous factors that were considered when forming a group and working in it. When the circumstances shaped so that we had to form a group we didn't have time to develop lots of the phenomenon that unfortunately exist in many other groups, like groupthink and deindividuation. We just had a task to be completed in front of us, and it was all we cared for. We won't say that everything went perfectly, but, nevertheless, we got a very valuable experience in working in group and team decision making we would now like to share with you.

As there weren't any defined hierarchical structure within the group, so the individual and authoritarian decision making strategy were inapplicable in this situation. It was rather that we used the consensus decision-making model, as all every member of our group is a professional who has his own views on the problem, and who can make valuable contribution to solving it. Before making a decision we listened for all of the suggestions the members of our group had, and then we took the most valuable from all of the suggestions we heard.

At the end of this stage, everything which we decided was worth attention was written down, and than we developed a strategy of actions according to all the information gathered. Thus the result we got was a result of real group work, but without the biases of the groupthink phenomenon. One of the characteristic features of group decision making process is that a good process itself doesn't guarantee the good outcome, and, on the contrary, complicated decision making process doesn't always result in a bad decision.

Group decision making process is much more complicated than the individual one, due to the fact that there are several people in the group whose views have to be considered when making a decision. On the contrary, the products of the group process are often more qualitative than those of the individual one, as when there are several people in the group the variety of choices they consider is usually greater than the number of those an individual can take into consideration.( Decision making in groups, Wikipedia, 2005) Fortunately our group managed to avoid the group biases and errors we noticed in the other groups' agency (well, this doesn't mean that we didn't invent our own ones).

The first and, maybe, the most important bias we managed to avoid was the negative attitudes towards the other groups. Some may accredit this phenomenon to the fact that we had to little time to develop group solidarity, but I prefer to believe that it was a result of the healthy atmosphere we managed to create and keep within the group. According to changing minds.org if a person makes a statement working in a group, "The problem then is that having taken a position you feel obliged to support it, even if you think it actually is a bit extreme" (Changingminds.org). Due to the model of decision making we used, there was no pressure on the members of the group for to make them support the group's views, which is often the reason for poor performance in many groups.

Thereafter the phenomena of self-censorship was also absent in our group, and when one of the members has some doubts regarding the decision taken, he/she expresses them, which helps to reduce the quantity of errors. The belief in inherent morality was also absent within our group, thus we knew we were able of making mistakes and watched closely for not to let it happen. We all know, that the individual is vulnerable to the social influence in decision making, as the human being is the social person, and it can evaluate itself only comparing to the other human beings.

An organization is just a gathering of people, and each of them is vulnerable to the society's viewpoint and to the influences that exist there. Thus, organizations are even more vulnerable to the social influences than the individuals are. Social influences define the organization's ethics, the direction and the pattern of actions. As you can see, creating an effective group is not an uncomplicated task, but, in the same time, it's not impracticable. Professionalism, mutual respect and motivation are the vital elements for creating the effective work team.

We are sure that every employee in our organization can become a part of the effective and successful work group.References1. Decision making in groups. Decision making. (2005). Wikipedia. Retrieved March 5, 2006 from URL Group Polarization Phenomenon. Retrieved March 5, 2006 http://changingminds.org/explanations/theories/group_polarization.htm