Team Decision Making Case Study

Summary: Chapter # 7 –Team Decision Making, Pitfalls and Solutions
Decision making is an absolute. It is found in individual and team response to any change that is to occur. Decision making in the primary component of this chapter and is dissected in great detail to make the individual realize its importance, the biases involved and the effects and consequences of the decision. In the beginning the chapter has an excellent review of four of the most common individual decision making biases and how they can and will impact the team. These biases are: (1) Framing, (2) Overconfidence, (3) Confirmation Bias and (4) Decision Fatigue. The chapter continues with individual versus group decisions while addressing or completing a demonstrable

It can apply to almost any decision that has been reframed or communicated differently to gain or cause a loss. The textbook, Making the Team, A Guide for Managers demonstrated a superb example (Thompson, 2014, p.164). Overconfidence occurs in individual and organizational setting as is the process by which the decision maker judges their decision to be correct with no room for error. This amount of confidence can be very detrimental in the team environment if the decision maker has a personality type that conveys the subordinates to follow their leadership whether by aggression or by charisma. The third and fourth type of biases, confirmation and decision fatigue both can be attributed to lack of mental resources or the inability to utilize the mental resources to make the decision. In confirmation bias the decision maker makes the decision based on whatever hypothesis will support their belief. Decision fatigue is when the individual(s) are mentally exhausted and take short-cuts or have utilized their mental resources to the point of collapse. The pitfalls of team decision making are given in the second part of the

I believe that this chapter goes to great lengths to address the types of conflict that occur within teams and how conflict can be utilized to create change, revolutionize creativity and deter negative groupthink. Relationship conflict is one of the primary types of conflict along with task conflict and process conflict. Relationship conflict is any conflict that can and does occur because of personality clashes, ego, and tensions between individuals within the team. It is one that is avoided by the team but it is inevitable, because of the diverse make-up of the members and their individual character traits. If this type of conflict is left to its own devises it will escalate and will become strenuous to the other team members. Task conflict also known as cognitive conflict within the team is where an individual who perceives a method of doing a task as being detrimental to the team and will be adamant in the reject of the method. This will cause conflict with those on the team who feel the new idea has merit. However, when the task method is challenged it can create new ideas as the team reevaluates the original suggestion. This talking about the task can and does stimulate new cognitive approaches to the method as well as to other processes produced by the