Agreement Bias
Assume you are at your and say to your team member "It would be better to have this discussion in the cafeteria".
Would the team member say yes it be better or answer no it is better to discuss at your desk?
Agreement bias is attributed to social norms that encourage agreeable behaviour. Managers posses an innate authority and it plays on the psychology of their team members.
In above example, it is more likely that the team member responds with a yes.
Managers can overcome agreement bias by:
- being mindful of their innate authority
- not framing questions positively that tend to be agreeable. In the above example, it would be better to ask "are you comfortable discussing it here or should we discuss this in the cafeteria?"
