Is Your Team Caught in the Solution Fixation Trap?

by Serena G. Sohrab, Mary J. Waller and Sjir Uitdewilligen

October 11, 2023

MirageC/Getty Images

Summary.

Have you ever found your team going back and forth to find a good solution to a problem and not making progress? Or maybe you’ve left a meeting feeling unsure about the chosen solution, wondering if your team overlooked important information. To help your team make better decisions more confidently, you need to address a decision-making bias we call the solution fixation trap.

Serena G. Sohrab , PhD, is a senior lecturer at the Bayes Business School (formerly Cass Business School) in London, UK. Her research focuses on unraveling factors that enhance individual and team work experiences. As a management educator, researcher, and consultant, Serena is dedicated to catalyzing positive change in the world of business and leadership.

Mary J. Waller , PhD, is senior research scholar in the College of Business at Colorado State University and Professor Emerita, York University, Toronto. Her program of research centers on improving our understanding of team effectiveness in crisis and critical situations.

Sjir Uitdewilligen is an associate professor at the Faculty of Psychology and Neuroscience at Maastricht University, The Netherlands. His research focuses on teamwork in dynamic contexts and under non-routine circumstances. He is interested in investigating novel methods for studying team interaction over time and developing tools for helping teams to improve their performance, as well as the well-being of their members.

Read more on Decision making and problem solving or related topics Leadership and managing people and Meeting management

Is Your Team Caught in the Solution Fixation Trap?

Summary.

Partner Center