Leaders and organizations make a mistake when they don't use the group to make strategic decisions. Research shows groups usually make better decisions. Not using group decision making is one of the 18 categories of biases and poor practices that we have identified that can produce bad strategic decisions.

Group strategy development is better. Having others challenge your thinking typically leads to better results. Also, research shows that averaging multiple judgments produces better outcomes than going with one person's judgment. A big reason to approach strategic planning as group learning is that can expose, mitigate or help avoid many decision making traps.