Leadership teams bring expertise, business knowledge and experience to consequential decisions․ The value of those resources depends on how the team uses them․ An appointment, investment or strategic commitment can receive careful attention while important information remains outside the discussion․
One risk is that agreement develops around a persuasive interpretation before the team has examined what could change it․ Once a preferred answer emerges, the meeting can become a search for reasons to support it․
Familiar information can dominate the discussion
Garold Stasser and William Titus studied information sharing in groups choosing between hypothetical candidates for student body president․ Members received different pieces of information, so the group collectively knew more than any individual․ Discussion nevertheless tended to preserve the initially favored choice, even when pooling the available information would have supported another candidate․
Their study of biased information sampling helps explain how information familiar to several people can dominate a discussion while information held by one person receives little attention․ It was a controlled study with students, rather than a study of executive teams․ Its practical relevance is the mechanism to watch for when a team brings together different knowledge․
A finance leader, a CHRO and an operating executive may each see a different part of an appointment or investment․ Repeating the facts everyone knows adds less than examining a consequential observation that only one of them can contribute․
Make room for individual judgments before agreement
Before the meeting, ask each participant to record a preliminary view, its main reasons and the uncertainty that matters most․ At the start of the discussion, collect relevant observations before announcing a preferred option․
This gives the team something concrete to compare․ Where views differ, examine the evidence and assumptions behind the difference․ Ask which fact another member may be missing and what would justify revising the initial judgment․
For an executive appointment, establish the role’s priorities before comparing candidates․ Sehm’s perspective on executive selection criteria proposes recording initial priorities independently, then discussing differences against the organization’s future needs․ This is a proposed decision procedure, with further empirical validation still needed․
Give contrary evidence a real hearing
A useful challenge concerns something that could alter the decision․ It might expose an assumption about customer demand, a constraint on implementation or a gap in the evidence for a candidate’s capability․
Invite people with relevant knowledge to explain those concerns and examine them alongside the supporting case․ The person leading the meeting can make this easier by asking for unresolved questions before offering their own recommendation․
Assigning a devil’s advocate can create an opportunity for challenge, but the role alone offers limited assurance․ In an experiment comparing forms of disagreement, Nemeth and colleagues found authentic dissent more effective than assigned advocacy at stimulating the quantity and quality of solutions․ Treat a scheduled challenge as a prompt to investigate real concerns, with access to the same information and room to influence the discussion․
Specify what would change the decision
Before committing, identify the assumptions on which the recommendation depends․ Ask what observation would lead the team to choose another option, gather more evidence or reduce the scale of the commitment․
Keep the record short enough to use․ Include the chosen option, the main reasons, the strongest unresolved concern and who will monitor the assumptions after the decision․ Where uncertainty is substantial, decide when the team will revisit it․
For an appointment, an unresolved concern might call for a focused reference conversation or further evidence of how the candidate has handled a relevant demand․ For an investment, it might call for a smaller experiment with an explicit review point․
At the agreed review point, compare the assumptions recorded before commitment with what the team has learned․ Revisit the decision when a consequential assumption changes, and carry the lesson into the next appointment or investment․
