Group vs. the Individual decision making
A. Strengths of group decision-making:
 Groups generate more complete information and knowledge.
 They offer increased diversity of views.
 This opens up the opportunity for more approaches and alternatives to be considered.
 The evidence indicates that a group will almost always outperform even
the best individual.
 Groups lead to increased acceptance of a solution.
B. Weaknesses of group decision-making:
 They are time consuming.
 There is a conformity pressure in groups.
 Group discussion can be dominated by one or a few members.
 Group decisions suffer from ambiguous responsibility.
C. Effectiveness and efficiency:
 Whether groups are more effective than individuals depends on the criteria you use.
 In terms of accuracy, group decisions will tend to be more accurate.
 On the average, groups make better-quality decisions than individuals.
 If decision effectiveness is defined in terms of speed, individuals are superior.
 If creativity is important, groups tend to be more effective than individuals.  If effectiveness means the degree of acceptance the final solution achieves,
groups are better.

b
1. Selection:
• Some people already possess the interpersonal skills to be effective team players.
Care should be taken to ensure that candidates could fulfill their team roles
as well as technical requirements.
• Many job candidates do not have team skills:
• This is especially true for those socialized around individual contributions.
• The candidates can undergo training to “make them into team players.”
• In established organizations that decide to redesign jobs around teams, it
should be expected that some employees will resist being team players and may
be un-trainable.
2. Training:
• A large proportion of people raised on the importance of individual
accomplishment can be trained to become team players.
• Workshops help employees improve their problem-solving, communication,
negotiation, conflict-management, and coaching skills.
• Employees also learn the five-stage group development model.
3. Rewards:
• The reward system needs to encourage cooperative efforts rather than competitive ones.
• Promotions, pay raises, and other forms of recognition should be given to individuals
for how effective they are as a collaborative team member.
• This does not mean individual contribution is ignored; rather, it is balanced
with selfless contributions to the team.
• There are other intrinsic rewards to being on a team.
 One example is that teams provide camaraderie:
 It is exciting and satisfying to be an integral part of a successful team.
 The opportunity to engage in personal development