How to Decide

Elicit feedback independently and share it with the group prior to meeting.

people give feedback that more accurately represents their knowledge and preferences when they do it independently and privately, compared with doing it in a group.

This is what eliciting initial feedback and ideas independently (by email or some other means) does. It reduces the artificial appearance of overlap in opinions, better exposing where beliefs diverge.

The most contagious beliefs on a team come from higher-status individuals.

in reality, ideas that come from people of lower status don’t get equal consideration on the merits.

HALO EFFECT A cognitive bias in which a positive impression of a person in one area causes you to have a positive view of that person in other, unrelated, areas.

there are a lot of benefits to having the first pass be anonymous.

Group members with lower status may have different, valuable perspectives. Sometimes, they see innovative solutions others don’t see because they aren’t as anchored to the status quo.

A good group process encourages feedback that includes giving people the space to express a lack of understanding. The group as a whole benefits from that because it affords the experts the opportunity to better understand why they believe what they do, and also affords them the opportunity to transfer their knowledge to the other members of the group. And sometimes it gives them an <You have reached the clipping limit for this item>