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Hello and welcome back to the Skills 360 Podcast. I’m your host, Tim Simmons, and today I want to look at leading a group to a decision.

If you tuned in last time, you may remember what I said makes a good decision. It’s one that people buy into, and people see the reasons behind. Well, that’s easier said than done. If you’re leading the meeting, you might wish for a simple and straightforward discussion that ends in one - and only one - logical decision. But dream on. You should expect a few obstacles along the way.

For one thing, sometimes people can get a bit personal. I mean, one person makes a suggestion, and someone else attacks the person, as opposed to the idea. It might be pretty easy to detect, like “Come on Dave, you always come up with the stupidest ideas.” But it might be a bit more indirect, like “Geez Dave, do you have any other great ideas?” In any case, you need to shut this down immediately. Call people out for personal attacks, and keep the discussion focused on ideas, not personality conflict.

This is part of your role as a facilitator. You’re supposed to encourage people to listen, prevent interruption, and generally make sure people feel respected and heard. As soon as people feel attacked personally, they’ll shut up. And you don’t want anyone to shut up, because anyone in the room could be sitting on the million dollar idea. So bring it back, nicely, to a focus on ideas, like this: “Okay everyone, let’s just focus on the issue at hand…” or “All right, but what about the website ideas?”

Another thing you need to shut down is conversation that goes completely off topic. People do this without even realizing it. They hear something, it reminds them of something else, they start talking about it… soon enough the conversation has gone from the topic of increasing sales to the best place to buy muffins. Your job is to steer the conversation back. Don’t be shy about it. Just come out and say “Muffins are great, but they’re way off topic.” Even people who tend to stray appreciate this.

Okay, so what about the people who love to hear themselves talk? I mean, there are some people who will go on and on and on about the same idea. Well, you can’t let them go on forever. Once you realize they’ve made their point, find a slight break in their little speech and jump in with a summary. Try something like: “So you’re saying…” or, if you need to be a bit more aggressive, you could say: “Okay, okay, hang on just a sec. As I understand it, you think…”

Another obstacle in a decision-making meeting is what we call “groupthink.”

Groupthink is when people just follow along with the ideas being discussed, without thinking for themselves. Or, they don’t try to come up with anything new. Instead, people just accept what is being put in front of them.

So how can you deal with groupthink? Well, you can try to encourage some creative thinking from the get-go. Tell everyone what groupthink is, and then tell them to avoid it.