Team reflexivity as an antidote to team information processing failures

Abstract

This paper proposes that team reflexivity – a deliberate process of discussing team goals, processes, or outcomes – can function as an antidote to team-level biases and errors in decision making. We built on prior work conceptualizing teams as information-processing systems and highlights reflexivity as a critical information processing activity. Prior research has identified consequential information-processing failures that occur in small groups, such as the failure to discuss privately held relevant information, biased processing of information, and failure to update conclusions when situations change. We propose that team reflexivity reduces the occurrence of information-processing failures by ensuring that teams discuss and assess the implications of team information for team goals, processes and outcomes. In this paper, we present a model of information-processing failures (TIPs) and of remedies involving team reflexivity. Next, we discuss the conditions under which team reflexivity is and is not likely to facilitate performance. In doing so, we integrate literature regarding team regulatory processes, emergent cognitive states, and team learning.