ABSTRACT
This chapter aims to give people usable information about the influences on the provision of quality information and what the impacts on decision-making can be. It also aims to provide practical guidance on how to overcome communication and decision-making barriers in order to improve the performance of working groups and teams as they attempt to engage and influence stakeholders. Groupthink is a term used by Irving L. Janis (1971), a social psychologist, following his extensive studies into decisions made by senior policy-making groups in the USA. The chapter explores ideas about decision-making with ideas about group dynamics to provide insights into the aspects that people need to manage to ensure that they provide high-quality information in an effective way when attempting to influence senior stakeholders. In Murray-Webster and Hillson study, real situations were exposed where powerful stakeholders who cared about the decision to be made, carried the decision irrespective of the views of other stakeholders.
