Advantages of the “Devil’s Advocate” Role In Group Decision Making
As the world gets flatter, teams are getting flatter right along with them. Thanks to the new digital workplace, team decisions are increasingly being made by consensus from members who weigh in remotely via email, conference call, Skype, text and a host of other ways.
By several measures, this is a good thing for the group decision making process: more voices allow for more insightful debate, additional buy-in among stakeholders, and increased options for possible outcomes. However, in an effort to reach consensus, larger groups also run the risk of not having enough dissension, and avoid asking themselves appropriately challenging questions (not to mention rushing to make decisions, so as to avoid scheduling any more time-consuming meetings). What can be done to address this?
The “devil’s advocate” gambit is a very good way to start. In a nutshell, someone is assigned this role at the start of a meeting, and his/her job is – putting it mildly – to be a major pain in the neck by raising doubts, challenging the status quo and being contrarian to every proposed idea or conclusion. So the group thinks that Idea “X” is a good one? The “devil’s advocate” highlights some major cracks and potential flaws. Is everyone in agreement on proceeding down Path “Y”? Not so fast- the “DA” has serious questions about the group’s assumptions.
I see this come into play all the time at our corporate trivia team building events. Very often, in the groups’ efforts to quickly right down the “correct” answers, not enough time or thought is given to other possible responses; a question is asked, to which just about everyone in the group quickly agrees to an answer – except for one person. If that outlier voices his/her concern loudly enough to challenge the group’s thinking and logic with regards to the correct answer, the group is forced to revisit the problem from different angles, and see if their response still holds up. The result, more often than not, is a better answer surfacing, which is actually the right one.
Especially if your team appears stagnated or is not being as productive/efficient as you know it can be, try employing the “devil’s advocate” at your next meeting, to test your assumptions and perhaps reveal some hidden imperfections in your decision making process. It may very well put you on the path to increased earnings – or save you from making very costly mistakes.
What are your thoughts on the role of the “devil’s advocate” in team decision making? If you disagree with the above, please explain why – I can stand to benefit from the “DA” as well!