GUEST POST by Katharina Naswall and Sanna Malinen from The Conversation
Most workers will be familiar with this scene: a meeting that goes round and round on a topic – one that may not be important to the priorities of the company. People leave the meeting frustrated and unheard. And the whole experience is repeated the next time everyone meets.
But does this have to be inevitable? Or is there a better way to organise how we interact within teams to support effective decision making?
Team decision making is thought to be critical for organisational success. Yet there are often real challenges that lead to conflict and confusion.
In our ongoing research, we define effective team decision making as a process of understanding a complex problem, identifying alternative solutions, and finally selecting the most appropriate option to meet the team’s objectives.
For this process to work, it is essential there is a culture that promotes diversity of backgrounds and perspectives. This leads to increased experience, intelligence, competence and task-relevant knowledge, as well as better overall problem solving capacity for the team.
This article excerpt is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the full original article.
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Katharina Naswall
Katharina’s research focuses on employee well-being and factors which lead to
psychologically healthy workplaces, using psychology.
Sanna Malinen
Sanna Malinen is a Professor of Organisational Behaviour and works at University of
Canterbury’s Business School.