What are the pros and cons of group decision-making and why is it tone so hard to do? Share with us your own experiences.

 

What are the pros and cons of group decision-making and, why is it tone so hard to do? Share with us your own experiences.

Group decision making is a process in which two or more people collectively analyze a situation to come up with a unanimous solution. It was during the summer holiday when I got a volunteer job in a local supermarket. I was part of a team of 6 employees and most of the decisions we made in unison. When making such group decisions, there were various advantages and disadvantages as discussed below;

Advantages of group decision-making.

• In group decision making, there are diverse ideas that lead to better decisions. When making group decisions in the supermarket, we would have different ideas that resulted in excellent decisions that the managers would be proud of.
• Group decisions create cohesion and unity among team members. When we made the group decisions, our team spirit improved and continued working in greater unity towards a common goal.
• Group decision making is also an opportunity for team building. The team we worked with, was fostered on collective decision making and, that resulted in it being referred to as the best working team in the organization.
• Group decision making increases the strength of an organization. The collective decision we had, was adopted by the management after seeing how successful it was in our team and that strengthened the organization by having concrete decisions that considered all the organizational stakeholders.

Disadvantages of group decision-making.

• Group decisions consume a substantial amount of time. All the team members have to come into a consensus and, that made the process slow as compared to making individual decisions.
• Some of the group members may fail to give a contribution to the group decision. When making the group decisions in the supermarket, not all six group members would contribute. Some would just agree to the decisions made, and that failed to reflect the view of all the group members.
• Some members may give irrelevant ideas in the group decision-making process. Not always did all members suggest relevant ideas. Some would give ideas, that would contradict the objectives of the organization and, that delayed the decision making trying to rule out the irrelevant ideas.
• Group decisions also reduce accountability from the employees. When we made a group decision, no single individual of the team would be accountable for the decision. In case of a poor decision, the management would find it very hard in finding who to blame for the bad decision. Poor decisions lead to negative repercussions with nobody to hold accountable.

Reasons why it is so hard to make group-decisions.

• The members of a team will always hold different opinions and, harmonizing them is a challenge.
• People have different priorities and, developing a unison priority list in making a decision is a challenge.
• People tend to shy off from taking responsibility in group decision and, that makes it difficult to have all the members participate in giving ideas about a decision.
• Group decisions are also hard to make due to the complexity of the process and time consumed to make them.