LDR 726 Week 3 Group Communication and Decision Making Example

What the Second Technician Knew: Information Sharing, Hidden Profiles and Groupthink in Wind Crew Decisions

[Student Name]

University of Phoenix

LDR/726: The Dynamics of Group and Team Leadership

Week 3 Assignment

[Instructor Name]

[Date]

Prairie Gale Wind Services, its crews and its incidents are composites written for a model paper.

The invented Prairie Gale crews have so far been studied for their routines and their stability. Week 1 found that briefings and shared understanding separated strong crews from weak ones, and Week 2 showed how frequent reassignment kept some crews from developing norms. This week focuses on how crews and supervisor teams make decisions. In April, a crew responded to a vibration alarm on a turbine in western Oklahoma. The lead technician, confident the cause was a worn gearbox bearing, replaced it. The alarm returned within three days. Two more weeks passed before another crew found the real cause: a misaligned coupling between the gearbox and generator. The second technician on the first crew later said he had noticed unusual wear on the coupling but did not mention it because the lead seemed sure and had more experience. The turbine lost about 17 days of production. Vice president Renee Castillo asked how many similar decisions failed quietly. This paper examines group communication and decision making.

Groups as Information Processors

Groups are often formed to make decisions because members hold different information and perspectives. The promise of a group is that it can combine what members know. Research shows that this promise is often unmet.

The Hidden Profile Study

In a now classic experiment, Stasser and Titus (1985) had small groups of students pick the best of several hypothetical campus election candidates. Information was distributed so that the best candidate could only be identified if members pooled information held by individuals. When information was fully shared, groups usually chose the best candidate. When it was distributed, groups mostly discussed information everyone already had and chose a weaker candidate. Unshared information was mentioned less often and, when mentioned, had less influence.

Information Sharing and Performance

Mesmer-Magnus and DeChurch (2009) conducted a meta-analysis of information sharing in teams. Information sharing was positively related to team performance, cohesion, satisfaction and knowledge integration. What only some members knew mattered more for results than what everyone already knew. Sharing was greater when teams used structured discussion and when members were less similar in their information, and it was hindered when discussion focused on reaching agreement quickly.

Groupthink Revisited

Esser (1998) reviewed 25 years of groupthink research. Studies found mixed support for the full model, in which cohesive, insulated groups with directive leaders seek concurrence and make poor decisions. Cohesion, the model's central antecedent, did not consistently produce groupthink. Directive leadership and insulation were more consistently associated with defective decision processes. Esser concluded that the concept had value but that the full model needed revision.

Decision 1: The Coupling Misdiagnosis

The crew had two members. The lead held strong prior experience with bearing failures; the second technician held a unique observation about the coupling. The crew did not hold a structured discussion before deciding. In Stasser and Titus's terms, unique information was not pooled. Status mattered: the second technician had two years of experience to the lead's twelve.

Decision 2: A Supervisors' Spare Parts Decision

In June, five regional supervisors decided to reduce spare gearbox inventory to save costs. The discussion focused on shared knowledge about average failure rates. One supervisor knew that a turbine model in her region showed early signs of a fleet-wide defect but raised it only briefly; the group, led by a senior supervisor who favored the cut, moved on. Two months later, three gearboxes of that model failed, and replacements took six weeks.

Decision 3: A Storm Stand-Down That Went Well

In contrast, during a severe weather watch in May, a crew decided to stop work early. The lead asked each member for their read of the radar and the site before deciding. The newest member mentioned lightning on a nearby ridge that others had not seen. The crew descended; lightning struck a turbine in the same wind farm twenty minutes later.

The safest decision of the year came from the crew whose lead asked the newest member to speak first.

What the Contrast Shows

The successful decision had features the failures lacked: the leader invited every member's information before stating a view, and discussion was structured around a clear question. The failures involved a confident senior person, a junior or minority holder of unique information and no structure for surfacing it.

Is This Groupthink?

The supervisors' decision shows some groupthink features, such as directive leadership and pressure toward agreement, but the group was not especially cohesive or insulated. Following Esser's critique, it is more precise to describe the failures as problems of information pooling and leadership style than as groupthink.

Communication Patterns in Crews

Radio logs and interviews show that in many crews, communication flows from lead to members. Members ask questions but rarely offer independent assessments. In high-performing crews, members routinely report observations even without being asked.

Practice 1: Structured Pre-Decision Check

Before any diagnosis that will lead to a major component replacement, the crew will complete a short check: each member states observations independently before the lead gives a diagnosis.

Practice 2: Juniors Speak First

In briefings and decisions, the least experienced member will give observations first, reducing the influence of senior members' opinions on what juniors share.

Practice 3: Structured Supervisor Meetings

For decisions with fleet-wide consequences, supervisors will circulate regional data in advance and use a round in which each supervisor reports unique information before discussion begins. One supervisor will be assigned to argue against the leading option.

Practice 4: Learning From Misdiagnoses

Every repeat repair will trigger a short review asking what each crew member observed and whether it was discussed.

Why Juniors Stay Quiet

Interviews with junior technicians explained their silence. Several said they assumed the lead had already noticed what they saw. Others worried about looking foolish or slowing the crew down. One said that the last time he questioned a lead's diagnosis, he was told to focus on his own work. These reasons fit research on status and information sharing: members with lower status share less unique information, especially when leaders seem certain, and leaders must actively invite it.

Measures

Prairie Gale will track repeat-repair rates, the number of diagnoses revised after the pre-decision check and technicians' survey responses on whether their observations are heard.

Limits

The analysis rests on a few decisions and on recollections after the fact, which may be biased by knowing the outcomes. Tracking future decisions under the new practices will provide better evidence.

Conclusion

Research shows that groups tend to discuss shared information and neglect what only one member knows, that sharing unique information drives performance and that groupthink's full model has mixed support while directive leadership consistently harms decisions. At Prairie Gale, a gearbox misdiagnosis and a spare parts decision failed because unique information was not pooled, while a storm decision succeeded because the leader invited everyone's view. Structured checks, juniors speaking first and structured supervisor meetings can help crews and leaders use what they collectively know.

References

Esser, J. K. (1998). Alive and well after 25 years: A review of groupthink research. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 73(2-3), 116-141. https://doi.org/10.1006/obhd.1998.2758

Mesmer-Magnus, J. R., & DeChurch, L. A. (2009). Information sharing and team performance: A meta-analysis. Journal of Applied Psychology, 94(2), 535-546. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0013773

Stasser, G., & Titus, W. (1985). Pooling of unshared information in group decision making: Biased information sampling during discussion. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 48(6), 1467-1478. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.48.6.1467