Three Approaches For Eliminating Groupthink On Your Work Teams

What does the ideal work team look like? Teams aren’t always made up of people we agree with (or even know very well). Mismatches in personalities and work styles, along with the unique knowledge and perspective each person brings to the team, can lead to conflict (or conflict avoidance) and complicate decision making.

Easy consensus isn’t really the goal of work teams. Instead, teams should be gathered to find the best solutions, which often requires disagreement and maybe even a skillful hand at drawing out hesitant feedback from quiet colleagues.

Even when teams work well, decision making isn’t necessarily going to be easy. When everyone is interested in finding the best solution and not everyone agrees on what that “best” is, some conflict is normal, and even helpful. In fact, high levels of minority dissent have been proven to lead to greater innovation in team decision making, according to a Journal of Applied Psychology article, because it “stimulates creativity and divergent thought.”

How can you encourage participation and the critical processing of ideas to make use of the perspectives of everyone on the team? Michele Markey, Vice President of Training Operations for SkillPath, shares several unconventional teamwork approaches that may help.