Why teams of like-minded people make worse decisions

Csaba Toth starts with an uncomfortable observation about hiring. Faced with a candidate who challenges them and one who agrees, most managers choose the second, because the conversation flows and the stress stays low. He describes it as the habit of liking and trusting people who are similar to us, and he argues it shapes recruitment, student project groups and boardrooms in much the same quiet way.

The reason is biological as much as social. The brain makes up about two percent of body weight yet uses more than twenty percent of the body's energy, so it builds shortcuts and habits that keep people in their comfort zone. Running on autopilot with familiar people is efficient. In his view, efficient is not the same as good, and the comfort of agreement can lead a whole team in the wrong direction.

He puts the point bluntly: if everyone agrees that the earth is flat, that does not make it true. The moment someone disagrees is where the potential lies, for success or for disaster. What happens next decides which one a team gets. Leaders who treat dissent as disloyalty lose the information it carries, while leaders who explore it give the group a chance to see further.

His first step surprises many people: get to know yourself. Most people believe they already do, but he points out that the bulk of our actions are driven by values and beliefs we are not even aware of. He compares it to arriving in Brighton with a tiny map of Jakarta. Trying harder, even with a growth mindset, only means getting lost more quickly. The same thing happens in conversations.

Reflection alone cannot close that gap, he says, because you cannot think your way to something you do not know exists. That is why he uses assessments to surface the underlying values and drivers that decide what feels right or wrong. Without that awareness, a clash with someone else's values triggers an intense emotional reaction that feels obviously justified, even though the person feeling it cannot explain why.

The second step is to understand other people, on the principle that their behaviour makes sense from where they stand. Nobody does something that seems pointless to them. Once the reason is visible, it becomes easier to tolerate, accept and sometimes learn from. That takes confidence, he adds, because it means being able to say you made a mistake, or that another solution is better than yours.

When two people disagree, Csaba Toth suggests zooming out. Very often both want exactly the same result and are only arguing about the route. Framing the argument as right against wrong guarantees that someone loses face. His alternative is to ask whether there is an even better way of doing things, a question where either person's idea, or a combination of both, can win, so nobody has to lose.

“Instead of asking who is right and wrong, ask the right question: is there an even better way of doing things?”

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The same logic applies to innovation. People with ideas need a psychologically safe environment, or they keep those ideas to themselves. But safety is not enough if everyone in the room thinks the same way. He argues that cognitive diversity, the way people process information, is the layer of diversity with proven performance benefits, and that a team which only looks diverse can still be collectively blind.

These ideas run through his book, Uncommon Sense in Unusual Times: How to stay relevant in the 21st century by understanding ourselves and others better than social media algorithms and people trained in taking advantage of us. He explains that the title carries the idea: personal and cultural differences are clashes of common senses. Treat them that way, he says, and teams can turn their differences into synergy rather than conflict.