Decision Making Assignment

Taking the bias out of meetings

Make sure the right people are involved

Assign homework

Create the right atmosphere

Ensure diversity of backgrounds, roles,

risk aversion profiles, and interests;

cultivate critics within the top team.

Invite contributions based on expertise,

not rank. Don’t hesitate to invite

expert contributors to come and present

a point of view without attending the

entire meeting.

Make sure predecision due diligence is

based on accurate, sufficient, and

independent facts and on appropriate

analytical techniques.

Request alternatives and “out of the

box” plans—for instance, by soliciting

input from outsiders to the decision-

making process.

As the final decision maker, ask others

to speak up (starting with the most

junior person); show you can change

your mind based on their input;

strive to create a “peerlike” atmosphere.

Encourage admissions of individual

experiences and interests that create

possible biases.

For the portion of the meeting where a

decision is going to be made, keep

attendance to a minimum, preferably

with a team that has experience making

decisions together. This loads the

dice in favor of depersonalized debate

by eliminating executives’ fear of

exposing their subordinates to conflict

and also creates, over time, an

environment of trust among that small

group of decision makers.

Consider setting up competing fact-

gathering teams charged with

investigating opposing hypotheses.

Encourage expressions of doubt

and create a climate that recognizes

reasonable people may disagree

when discussing difficult decisions.

Encourage substantive disagreements

on the issue at hand by clearly

dissociating it from personal conflict,

using humor to defuse tension.

The biases that undermine strategic decision making often operate in

meetings. Here is a menu of ideas for running them in a way that will mitigate the

impact of those biases. Not every suggestion will be applicable to

all types of decisions or organizations, but paying attention to the principles

underlying these ideas should pay dividends for any executive trying to

run meetings that lead to sounder decisions.

These meeting

guidelines were

prepared by

Dan Lovallo and

Olivier Sibony.

On the cover: Seeing through biases in strategic decisions

Manage the debate

Follow up

Before you get going, make sure

everyone knows the meeting’s purpose

(making a decision) and the criteria

you will be using to make that decision.

For recurring decisions (such as

R&D portfolio reviews), make it clear

to everyone that those criteria include

“forcing devices” (such as comparing

projects against one another).

Take the pulse of the room: ask

participants to write down their initial

positions, use voting devices, or ask

participants for their “balance sheets” of

pros and cons.

Use the premortem technique to

expand the debate.

Commit yourself to the decision.

Debate should stop when the decision

is made. Connect individually with

initial dissenters and make sure

implementation plans address their

concerns to the extent possible.

Monitor pre–agreed upon criteria and

milestones to correct your course or

move on to backup plans.

Counter anchoring: postpone

the introduction of numbers if possible;

“reframe” alternative courses of action

as they emerge by making explicit

“what you have to believe” to support

each of the alternatives.

Pay attention to the use of comparisons

and analogies: limit the use of inappro-

priate ones (“inadmissible evidence”) by

asking for alternatives and suggesting

or requesting additional analogies.

Force the room to consider opposing

views. For vital decisions, create an

explicit role for one or two people—the

“decision challengers.”

Conduct a postmortem on the decision

once its outcome is known.

Periodically step back and review

decision processes to improve meeting

preparation and mechanics, using an

outside observer to diagnose possible

sources of bias.

Dan Lovallo is a professor at the University of Sydney, a senior research

fellow at the Institute for Business Innovation at the University of

California, Berkeley, and an adviser to McKinsey; Olivier Sibony is a director

in McKinsey’s Brussels office. Copyright © 2010 McKinsey & Company.

All rights reserved.