Can Mindfulness be Helpful in Team Decision‐Making? A Framework for Understanding How to Mitigate False Consensus

Abstract

Mindfulness has recently attracted a great deal of interest in the field of management. However, even though mindfulnessbroadly viewed as a state of active awarenesshas been described mainly at the individual level, it may also have important effects at aggregated levels. In this article, we adopt a team-based conceptualization of mindfulness, and develop a framework that represents the powerful effect of team mindfulness on facilitating effective decision-making. We further discuss how a conceptualization of team mindfulness may mitigate the process of false consensus by interacting positively with the following five central team processes: open-mindedness, participation, empowerment, conflict management, and value and ambiguity tolerance. A false consensus constitutes a cognitive bias, leading to the perception of a consensus that does not exist. In essence, we argue that, although a conceptualization of team mindfulness does not guarantee effective decision-making in itself, it may successfully reduce false consensus when coupled with these five team processes. Accordingly, this article contributes to the theory and practice of team decision-making by demonstrating how a conceptualization of team mindfulness can be helpful in the increasingly complex and ambiguous situations faced by contemporary teams.

The influence of team mindfulness on nurses' presenteeism: A cross‐sectional study from the perspective of sensemaking

“…Perceived empathic concern and perceived insider status mediate the relationship between team mindfulness and nurses' presenteeism. Referring to previous research on the mechanism of team mindfulness, the studies primarily focused on how to improve the quality of team decision‐making (Selart et al., 2020), promote team performance (Rupprecht et al., 2019) and reduce task conflict and role conflict (Yu & Zellmer‐Bruhn, 2018). However, insufficient research has been published that examines the influence of team mindfulness on individual well‐being.…”

Online Meeting Challenges in a Research Group Resulting from COVID-19 Limitations

“…The importance of "breaking down silos" in research communities with researchers from various disciplines becoming knowledgable about the research of others in a growing concern in academe and has affected what is now considered important for holding successful academic meetings [59]. In creating an interdisciplinary environment, three factors are identified as relevant: self-directed learning [60], team mindfulness [61] and ensuring the meetings themselves are democratic [62].…”

“…Team mindfulness, as a flexible manner of interacting with team members where group participants are actively engaged in the present, notice new things and are sensitive to the context in which new information comes to the attention of the group [127], was a prominent feature of the HeNReG in-person meetings during the time when the group met synchronously in person. Then, each participant would listen to others read their response to the prompt and provide them with a question the reader answered to further enrich what they had written.…”

Online Meeting Challenges in a Research Group Resulting from COVID-19 Limitations

“…The importance of "breaking down silos" in research communities with researchers from various disciplines becoming knowledgeable about the research of others in a growing concern in academe and has affected what is now considered important for holding successful academic meetings [59]. In creating an interdisciplinary environment, three factors are identified as relevant: self-directed learning [60], team mindfulness [61] and ensuring the meetings themselves are democratic [62].…”