Avoid Sunflower Bias: Critical PM Priority | Video

Sunflower Bias is when we turn to face the ‘brightest’ source in the room – and allow them to influence us beyond the rigor of their arguments.

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The Sunflower Bias Metaphor

As they are growing, Sunflowers turn to face the sun during the day. And people do something similar.

Often, in meetings, groups turn to align their opinions to the brightest source in the room. This may be the expert, the client, boss, or the leader. They find it hard to disagree when they know what the most important person in the room thinks. That is sunflower bias.

Sunflower Bias is Dangerous.

The most important person is not necessarily right. Even experts get it wrong.

Robust Decision

The best chance of a robust decision, is one where everyone contributes their independent thinking.

So, if you are the expert, client, boss, or leader, you have a responsibility. If you want to hear what people really think, keep your own views to yourself. And don’t call on experts to speak first. For your views after hearing everyone’s ideas.

If you are not in the lead, avoid the desire to align yourself to the sun. When they mature, sunflowers stop turning to face the sun, wherever it is. And so must you. This doesn’t mean taking up a contrary view for its own sake. But it does mean finding the right direction to face, on each issue.

Recommended Videos

Carefully curated video recommendations for you:

• What we see… Confirmation Bias
• It’ll Never Fly: Beat Confirmation Bias
• What is Project Governance?
• 5 Tips for Good Project Governance

And helpful articles:

• The Essential Guide to Robust Project Decision Making
• Rapid Decision Making in Projects: How to Get it Right

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