The Metiss Group's Blog

Susan Cain, in her book Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking, describes a series of experiments by psychologist Solomon Asch in which volunteers were grouped into teams and asked to take a vision test. He showed them a picture of three lines of varying lengths and asked questions about how the lines compared with one another. His questions were so simple that 95 percent of participants answered every question correctly. But when Asch planted high dominating actors in the groups, and the actors confidently volunteered incorrect answers, the number of participants who gave correct answers plunged to 25 percent.

The impact persistent, aggressive dominating types have on group decision making is astounding and can send teams in unproductive and inaccurate directions.  Stating incorrect facts forcefully and relentlessly doesn’t make them correct, but can eventually make them believable.  Teams that are aware of this when making decisions, are comfortable challenging dominating team members, and have dominating team members whom are comfortable admitting they may be wrong are much healthier.

Today, more and more work is being done in teams, and those teams risk being knocked off track by certain team members.  But, teams that understand each other’s problem solving styles and have a common language for identifying the various approaches are equipped to make better decisions.

Empower your teams to understand their workplace behaviors and avoid being unduly influenced by the high dominating team members and they’ll be more successful.

This entry was posted on January 27, 2014 at 5:00 am and is filed under Leadership, Performance Acceleration. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. You can comment below, or link to this permanent URL from your own site.