Have you ever found your team going back and forth to find a good solution to a problem and not making progress? Or maybe you’ve left a meeting feeling unsure about the chosen solution, wondering if your team overlooked important information. To help your team make better decisions more confidently, you need to address a decision-making bias we call the solution fixation trap.
Is Your Team Caught in the Solution Fixation Trap?
This decision-making bias puts you at risk of committing to the wrong course of action.
October 11, 2023
Summary.
In the face of escalating complexities, organizations are increasingly relying on teams to tackle these intricate issues and drive pivotal organizational decisions. To extract maximum value from team dynamics, leaders must remain mindful of potential biases that may impact team dynamics and to actively steer and fine-tune team processes. Specifically, the authors urge leaders to address a decision-making bias they call the solution fixation trap, which emerges when a team rushes into discussing possible solutions before fully understanding the problem at hand. The authors discuss the study that helped them uncover this bias, explain what the solution fixation trap looks like, and discuss what leaders can do to protect their teams from it.
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Decision Making Course
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Practical ways to improve your decision-making process.
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New!
HBR Learning
Decision Making Course
Accelerate your career with Harvard ManageMentor®. HBR Learning’s online leadership training helps you hone your skills with courses like Decision Making. Earn badges to share on LinkedIn and your resume. Access more than 40 courses trusted by Fortune 500 companies.
Practical ways to improve your decision-making process.