Persuasive Communication - How Audiences Decide. 2nd Edition

26 Understanding Rational Decision Making

have observed, the online version of Consumer Reports amounts to a personal decision support

system.^216

Consumer Reports is not the only source of instant expertise. Insurance policies featuring decision

matrices that contrast different types of insurance help novice consumers develop the schemata

they need to understand the policies and to pose the right questions about them.^217 Health care

pamphlets containing decision matrices that contrast alternative medications and their possible side

effects not only help patients develop the schemata they need to make more informed decisions,^218

they also increase compliance rates.^219 Fact sheets providing decision matrices for choosing among

both comparable and noncomparable products signifi cantly improve the quality of consumers’

purchasing decisions.^220

Some large organizations, including Toyota, Chevron, and the U.S. Department of Defense,

routinely require project managers to develop decision matrices (also called analytical compari-

sons of multiple alternatives ) and to present them to upper management prior to investing the

organization’s resources in any of the options.^221 Some top consulting firms routinely pro-

vide their business clients with decision matrices to support their decision making. When

seeking expert advice, many clients actually prefer to receive matrix-like information about

alternatives and their attributes instead of a recommendation regarding which alternative to

choose.^222

It turns out that novices are usually happy to base their decisions on whatever decision criteria

are presented to them, whether or not the criteria are the experts’ decision criteria.^223 Basing one’s

decision on another’s criteria may not always be a good idea, however. One study reports that dur-

ing the course of a sales interaction, salespeople often use expressions that encourage consumers to

consider decision criteria not necessarily relevant to their purchasing decision (e.g., what others will

think, the possibility of a missed opportunity). Thus, consumers’ thoughts are diverted from more

important criteria such as the price and quality of the product.^224

The Development of Shared Decision Schemata in Groups

Groups and teams become more expert and more cohesive when members coordinate their indi-

vidual schemata with those of other team members and develop shared schemata, or shared mental

models, to structure their decisions and other tasks.^225 The number and complexity of teams’ shared

mental models relevant to their tasks increase signifi cantly over time and are vital to the coordina-

tion of team efforts.^226

In order to develop such shared schemata, team members must have the ability to coordinate the

potentially different mental models of all the members of the team.^227 When they encounter new,

nonroutine tasks, higher-performing teams use signifi cantly different processes to develop shared

mental models than those used by lower-performing teams.^228 For example, higher-performing

teams may consciously coordinate divergent schemata by negotiating which decision criteria are

relevant to the team’s decisions.^229 They may also use employee training and leader briefi ngs to help

team members arrive at a shared mental model.^230

Face-to-face interaction, especially at the beginning of a new project, is critical to a team’s

development of a shared schema or mental model. Technology-mediated interaction via video-

conferencing, on the other hand, can negatively impact a team’s ability to develop a shared mental

model^231 as can a division of labor among team members and any other behavior that inhibits

knowledge sharing.^232 But encouraging team members to take time to explain and justify their

recommendations to each other helps the team integrate their divergent schemata more quickly

and completely.^233