We come together in face-to-face and remote groups to learn from each other, make decisions, and enjoy one another’s company. Unfortunately, humans are prone to biases, even as we come together to make use of our colleagues’ expertise and judgment. Leaders and groups try to avoid these biases by looking to decades of modern research, and millennia in terms of rational thinking, to prevent status bias, groupthink, polarization, and just bad calls.

We don’t all share our thoughts in the same manner, or as effectively. Not everybody wants to think or work out loud. Even in writing, we may not get out what we really mean. Here, we share the value you can gain by using technologies that help your groups make full use of their information, with a particular focus on information from the bottom-up.

Thanks to Anat Itay-Sarig, Ph.D, Ment.io’s Head of Partnerships and User Well Being for joining me in this post. Ment.io offers an artificial intelligence (AI) discussion tool used by enterprises and universities for remote inclusive discussions.

Augmenting Our Decision Practices With Technology

In some cases, we turn to technology to help with group discussions. Technology may allow us to participate remotely - removing the need to be in the same place. Technology may also change the dynamics. For example, discussion tools may limit the focus on gender (so women’s ideas can get more attention). More sophisticated tools, like Ment.io, highlight insights such that the ideas themselves are top of mind, while also shining a light on possible biases so we can learn to do better.

As with most things in organizations, the best outcomes come from a mix across the 5Ts: Target, Talent, Technology, Technology, and consideration of the Times. No single technology or talent will offer the same benefit as a well-constructed practice across all the 5Ts.

Corporate Setting

Ment.io shares this example from their own experience of how the technology, talent, and technique came together at the time of their initial launch. The VP R&D posed: “What should be our highest priority challenge post the product launch?” Four days and 25 comments later, a comment raised by a developer, Yair, had risen to the top:

The most interesting result of this discussion was that Yair’s answer came up as the top answer, i.e. as the highest score for its level of confidence, based on our proprietary Bayesian scoring model. Ment.io also allows us to analyse the reasons behind the support to this answer, and we saw two interesting aspects to this answer coming up as the best one. Firstly, many developers supported the answer with further reasons and secondly the whole of the R&D group, apart from one, voted in favor of this answer.

As an organization, Ment.io uses radical transparency (prior post showing Terri’s support as well). The ideas of front-line developers, vice-presidents, and board members are all in the mix.

University Setting

You might think that universities are places with great open discussions. Sometimes they are; if technology, talent, and technique are mixed in a supportive way. If left to evolve, Anat finds consistent, but different, patterns of discussion across different levels of students:

Undergraduate students tend to be balanced in terms of agree/disagree with each other and the professor.
MBA students seem to have an “agreement” bias - perhaps learned from their experience as junior members of their companies (don’t rock the boat).
Executive MBA students are balanced. It might be that their seniority level enables them to feel more comfortable with handling different perspectives.

While understandable, patterns of discussion that follow anything but the ideas themselves limit the quality of the discussion and decisions; neither balance nor agreement may correctly follow the quality of the ideas. Faculty can try and inoculate against bias, but we haven’t been able to eradicate it.

Mixing in Technology for Decision Support

Technology alone won’t give us better discussions or decisions, but a combination of talent, technology, and technique can create a rich environment for targeted discussion. (Even more so in these times of emergence for remote classes and work.) The best discussions may come from anywhere in the organization and offering an asynchronous format may open the discussion even more. At a top US university: Out of 139 discussions in a class of 110 students, the instructor created only 44. Forty-five different students asked the rest of the 66 questions (1-7 questions per student). Systems that empower all to create discussions, and make it convenient to do so, offer greater opportunities to share and build ideas.

Tune Your Discussions

Timing

The best timing for an online discussion may vary given the target. Anat finds university discussions need about between a few days to two weeks, while corporate settings can work through a discussion in just a few days. The variables affecting the timing include attention span, other assignments that draw on attention availability, tempo of the organization, the task at hand and it’s deadline…. (Thank you for sharing others you’ve noticed in comments below.)

Technique

The organization’s overall support of inclusiveness plays an important role. Involvement is a two-way street, an invitation that you do or do not take. We should never create so many discussions that the invitation isn’t seen as precious.

Technology

And finally, technology adds value to the extent that talented people want to learn from the analytics offered. We see this at two levels:

Understanding how and whom you collaborate with can drive behavior - working on decisions is more interesting/motivating in a group.
Using personal and group analytics to enable optimal decision making. Similar to nominal group technique, individuals can adjust their views based on the responses of others. Tools like Ment.io highlight trends of responses, as well as the “thought distances” amongst the team.

Learning From Your Collaborations

The COVID-19 crisis has abruptly changed how many of us work and learn. To the extent that we can take anything positive from the situation, perhaps it’s the chance to reflect on new ways of working and learning.

Technology and Organizations

Discussions and Decisions: Gaining Value From the Whole Team