Why Did Nobody Tell Me? Getting Information Only One Person Holds Into Decisions

By Stephen Russell. 

I was working on a contested management buyout, and the principals were debating their path to regulatory approval. An analyst raised a detail that bore directly on the timetable. He was heard – people looked up, someone nodded – but then the conversation moved on as though nothing had been said. I let it go to see whether anyone would return to it. When nobody did, and the decision began to harden, I finally brought the group back. 

Anyone who has sat through a board, investment or credit committee will recognise the pattern. The discussion paper follows a strict template, the first speaker narrows it, further contributions focus on the points already raised, momentum gathers and, in the time allowed, information outside that frame struggles to surface or gain traction.  

“If someone had just said something” is a familiar explanation after an organisational failure, but it assumes that the missing warning was never voiced. Research suggests it is more complicated¹ – a group can invite challenges and still fail to surface, connect or act on information held by only one member.  

Candour Has Limits 

Psychological safety and employee voice make candour more likely^{2, 3} but they do not, by themselves, ensure that a group will aggregate the information it needs for a robust decision. Research on "hidden profiles" in group discussions tests this directly^{4, 5}: information is distributed so that no member individually holds enough to identify the best option, and only pooling what each knows uniquely will reveal it. 

A meta-analysis of 65 studies, 101 independent effects and 3,189 groups found that discussions are dominated by information held in common among members: groups mentioned two standard deviations more pieces of common information than information held by only one person⁵. Common information is simply more likely to come up because more people hold it; people tend to raise what supports their ex ante view, which usually means the common information; and what others recognise gets repeated. 

The consequence is material; across studies, groups facing a hidden profile were eight times less likely to find the optimal solution than groups given full information⁵. 

The researchers separated two measures already in use in the literature⁵: 'information coverage', the proportion of available unique information that gets mentioned at all, and 'discussion focus', the share of discussion devoted to it. Both were positively associated with decision quality; coverage showed the larger correlation, although the difference between them was not statistically significant. What matters is simpler: groups cannot consider information that has not surfaced.  

Experienced Board Members Are Not Exempt

A more recent experiment tested 141 Dutch board members, working in threes with fifteen minutes to choose between three candidates for a management appointment⁶. In most groups at least two members began with the same preference, and that preference largely determined the outcome: 83 per cent of those groups chose the candidate favoured before discussion even began, and only a fifth identified the objectively best candidate. Two procedures were introduced to elicit diverse opinions and weigh the candidates' pros and cons. Neither required members to disclose information the others did not already hold, and neither improved decision quality. Board members nevertheless reported confidence and satisfaction, and those given a procedure were more convinced they had weighed the evidence properly.  

The obvious objection is that real boards are better equipped than this: papers are circulated in advance, dissent is minuted, and drawing people out is a key skill of the chair. But a board pack distributes common information, and common information is not where this research finds the failure. Whatever one director knows and is not written down is, by definition, not in the pack.  

Designing Decisions 

Interventions that prompt a group to revisit a decision it has already reached, such as a premortem-style mental simulation, can improve decision quality in these hidden-profile tasks¹. Structure and sequencing of discussions offer a different route, acting on the order in which a group converges rather than on a preference already formed.  

The stepladder technique, first outlined in 1992, offers one possible response⁷. In a four-person group, everyone first works independently. Two members discuss the problem; a third then presents their view before hearing the pair’s conclusions. The enlarged group discusses again before the fourth enters and presents, again without knowing what has been said. No consensus can be reached until everyone has contributed. In the original research, 15 stepladder groups outperformed 15 conventional groups on a survival-ranking exercise, and participants reported less pressure to conform, greater effort and a friendlier group climate. 

The mechanism is that independent analysis protects the information members hold, while sequential entry reduces early pressure to conform and requires the group to hear something new before it settles on a view⁷. The later evidence is mixed: some studies found benefits, but five others failed to reproduce the advantage over unstructured discussion, including one that tested the technique directly on a hidden profile⁸. Hidden-profile research nevertheless supports the mechanism rather than this particular implementation of it, which suggests the stepladder could be treated as a design approach rather than a field guide.  

From that structure I would draw five principles (3 and 4 are my additions): 

1. Before discussion, ask each member to record what they know and what they conclude from it. 
2. Require each to present both in full before the group responds. 
3. After each material contribution, ask whether and how it changes anyone's current view. 
4. Where it has not, record the reason. 
5. Delay commitment to a decision until those updates have been reviewed. 

Now Are You Listening? 

Psychological safety and employee voice are necessary to improve organisational decisions. But the decision process can work against them while leaving the group content that it has been thorough. Decision design must therefore bring unique information into the discussion, and make the group consider what it changes. Culture undoubtedly empowers people to speak; the decision process determines whether the organisation hears what they have to say. 

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About the Author

Stephen Russell helps investors and boards identify leadership, behavioural and governance risks before they undermine consequential decisions, particularly during uncertainty, conflict or organisational strain. He is co-founder of Axiom Behavioral Intelligence, where he advises on leadership diligence and governance under pressure. An economist by training, he holds an MSc in Quantitative Economics from the University of Bristol and is completing an MSc in Organisational Psychology at Birkbeck, University of London. His perspective draws on more than 25 years in banking, international financial-services consulting, entrepreneurship and operating leadership, including co-founding and leading the family-owned Copper Rivet Distillery.

Commercial Disclosure 

Stephen Russell is a co-founder and director of Axiom Behavioral Intelligence Limited, a commercial advisory business whose work overlaps with the subject of this article. No Axiom Behavioral Intelligence service is evaluated or promoted here, and the author has no financial or personal relationship with the researchers or organisations cited. 

References 

[1] Nicholson, D. H., Hopthrow, T., Randsley de Moura, G., & Travaglino, G. A. (2021). 'I've just been pretending I can see this stuff!': Group member voice in decision-making with a hidden profile. British Journal of Social Psychology, 60(3), 1096–1124.  

[2] Edmondson, A. C. (1999). Psychological Safety and Learning Behavior in Work Teams. Administrative Science Quarterly, 44(2), 350–383. 

[3] Morrison, E. W. (2014). Employee Voice and Silence. Annual Review of Organizational Psychology and Organizational Behavior, 1, 173–197. 

[4] Stasser, G., & Titus, W. (1985). Pooling of unshared information in group decision making: Biased information sampling during discussion. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 48(6), 1467–1478.  

[5] Lu, L., Yuan, Y. C. and McLeod, P. L. (2012). Twenty-Five Years of Hidden Profiles in Group Decision Making: A Meta-Analysis. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 16(1), 54–75. 

[6] Coffeng, T., van Steenbergen, E. F., de Vries, F., & Ellemers, N. (2021). Quality of group decisions by board members: A hidden-profile experiment. Management Decision, 59(13), 38–55.  

[7] Rogelberg, S. G., Barnes-Farrell, J. L., & Lowe, C. A. (1992). The stepladder technique: An alternative group structure facilitating effective group decision making. Journal of Applied Psychology, 77(5), 730–737.  

[8] Winquist, J. R., & Franz, T. M. (2008). Does the Stepladder Technique improve group decision making? A series of failed replications. Group Dynamics: Theory, Research, and Practice, 12(4), 255–267.