How Do Teams Arrive at Good Judgments and Decisions?

Teamwork is increasingly valued in modern work environments, but we’re still very much in the early days when it comes to understanding the science of team dynamics. Consider the following scenario and the influences at play: Rather than voting, a small work team arrives at a judgment and decision via deliberation and consensus-building, and there is a person in a position of power in the team who puts forward the final decision based on this process. In order to perform well in this situation, team members need to be able to influence one another to draw out the information and expertise that is available in the team. Different team members may bring different types of influence to the table. But how do these different sources of influence play out to shape judgment and decision-making?

Bonner and colleagues (2022) shed light on the dynamics. In any scenario of this type, some team members may have (1) notable past experience (e.g., they have worked in the organization for a long time, or they have some past experience working on problems similar to the judgment and decision-making problem the team is currently focused on). Other team members might have (2) expertise (e.g., knowledge and skills relevant to addressing the problem). Other team members may have influence in the form of power, for example, (3) power to make decisions after gathering team member inputs, or (4) power to distribute rewards whenever the team is successful in their teamwork. Indeed, in many real-world judgment and decision-making situations, a team member might have influence derived from any combination of these four sources of influence.

Bonner and colleagues (2022) highlight research that suggests that group judgments and decisions will often default to the preferences of those with perceived expertise (i.e., those with “experience”). However, they also point to studies highlighting the obvious problem that “experience” is not always correlated with actual competence or expertise. When some social signals are available that allow team members with decision power or reward power to distinguish between experience and expertise, then these sources of power and influence may help teams arrive at more accurate and sound judgments that are better aligned with the judgment of experts, ultimately producing better decisions, more team success, and larger team rewards, which can be then be distributed amongst team members.

In a study of 120 teams, Bonner and colleagues (2022) examined the relative influence of these factors in a neat experimental situation where teams were asked to work together on a series of estimation tasks (i.e., estimating the number of objects contained in a set of jars). When participants (N = 360) arrived at the laboratory, they were told they would be working as part of a small team, and they were shown a range of prizes on offer for good team performance. They then got down to work, but the experience and experimental conditions varied across team members. Some individuals were given experience with the estimation task, while others did a filler task (i.e., at Time 1). Next, all participants were given an opportunity to perform a set of estimations individually (Time 2), and this allowed the researchers to assess their individual competence or expertise level before (Time 3) being placed into teams of three to collectively perform another set of estimations using a different set of jars.

Here’s where the experiment gets interesting. The three team members (A, B, C) were assigned different roles. Team member A was the key team member in the experimental design, as they were provided with either (i) no unique influence (i.e., similar to team members B and C), (ii) influence derived from their notable past experience performing the judgment task at Time 1, (iii) influence linked to reward power (i.e., they could decide how to divide up the prizes among team members if their team judgments were accurate enough to win prizes), and (iv) influence in the form of decision power (i.e., they had the final say in making the group estimation decisions). Across the full set of 120 teams, team member A either had none, one, two, or all three forms of influence. Statistically, this allowed Bonner and colleagues (2021) to examine the individual and combined effects of these forms of influence on decision-making judgments.

Based on previous research, Bonner and colleagues (2022) hypothesized that groups would gravitate toward the judgment preferences of “experienced” members if they had such members available on their team. This hypothesis was confirmed: When a team member was perceived to have relevant experience, group decisions were weighted toward their preferences. However, the inclusion of decision and reward power influence changed this weighted dynamic, and results indicated that when someone in the group held either or both of these forms of power, group decisions were instead weighted toward the preferences of the member with the most expertise.

Interestingly, the effects of reward power, in particular, were critical in the sense that this form of influence led to superior team judgment accuracy. As noted by Bonner and colleagues (2021), team members with reward power may be incentivized to take care when evaluating team member contributions so as to promote an equitable division of rewards. While being in possession of reward power could lead to bias, Bonner and colleagues (2022) note that, in teamwork situations, the interdependent nature of tasks often creates incentives for group-level success that, in turn, lead powerholders to use their power in a communal manner. As such, when there are team-based rewards, those with reward power may defer to the preferences of less powerful members who are more competent or expert than themselves. What is particularly interesting here is that reward power influence in the team may help the team collectively to weigh expert members' input more heavily, regardless of the significant and potentially biasing influences of past “experience.”

Overall, the results of this study highlight the subtle and often complex push-and-pull of influence in groups in situations where—at least in principle—everyone is trying to “pull together” to achieve some level of team success. Team members may be unaware of the influences at play, but by reflecting on the science of team dynamics, I believe it is possible for teams to become more conscious of their team design and process, such that the balance of member influences leads them to make better judgments and decisions and thus achieve greater team success.