10th March 2026 Pluralistic Ignorance

A special thanks to DMH Stallard LLP for supporting us.

Dear Readers:

Do you ever suffer from ‘imposter syndrome’? Yes? This newsletter may resonate with you….. In this newsletter, we will explore one way imposter syndrome reveals itself in a team of decision makers.

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Katherine x

Pluralistic Ignorance

“I know what you are thinking” - an article by Simon Webber at The Decision Arc, about how to banish pluralistic ignorance from team decision-making.

Decision Mapping: See clearly how your team actually makes decisions - take the assessment.

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“I know what you are thinking”

At least, I assume I know what you are thinking. And I’m wrong.

Sometimes, I assume you agree with me and never think to check. Sometimes, I assume you disagree and I keep quiet to avoid the conflict. Rarely, do I stop to wonder how wildly inaccurate my assumptions might be or what it could be costing us both.

Let’s imagine….

Our team’s trying to make a decision. I think we’re making a mistake. But I assume I’m the only one who thinks that, so I just stay silent on this one. Everyone else seems comfortable (it doesn’t occur to me that I can’t actually tell what they’re thinking from how they ‘seem’).

As it happens, I’m not the only one who thinks we’re making a mistake, and I’m not the only one who’s staying quiet. In fact, we’re the majority, we just don’t know it. So the mistake is made.

Why on earth would we stay silent? We’re intelligent folk who want the best outcome and are generally happy to advocate for it. But we’re also social creatures. We want to agree, we don’t want to be naysayers or outliers, we wonder if we’re missing something obvious to others, and we sense our group can tolerate only so much disagreement. We have a sense of a reservoir of ‘disagreement capital’ which we’re reluctant to waste when (we assume) we’re in a minority of one. We pick our battles. So the mistake is made.

Keep reading….

The Decision Arc was founded by Simon Webber, who has spent 25 years advising, and sitting on, Boards and decision teams within financial services. He has seen how leadership teams really make decisions and what it costs them when the patterns go wrong.

Simon has turned a long-term fascination with how groups handle decision-making into The Decision Arc, which brings together his working life and studies (having completed a Masters in political philosophy) while working in financial services.

The Decision Arc lets leadership teams see how they decide by default, understand the benefits that brings them, and see what is costs them. Then offer practical governance interventions to manage these costs, both formally, and as tips for leaders.

Simon can be contacted via the website: https://thedecisionarc.com or on Linkedin.

Decision Mapping: See Clearly How Your Team Actually Makes Decisions.

The way a team tackles decisions contains a hidden pattern, which sets them on a certain trajectory. It defines where they’ll naturally add value, but also where they’ll predictably incur costs. Some teams delay when they should act, others commit when they should explore. The patterns are persistent, observable, and costly.

The Decision Arc has developed eight distinct Decision Postures, across which the trajectory of your team can be mapped, based on a short survey completed by each of the team’s members. Decision Postures emerge from how the team operates together…

Here’s a thought

Pluralistic ignorance is also the reason social change seems slow but then happens suddenly. It can persist among the closest friends, the tightest families, and even within couples. If you hold an opinion, or a set of values, you think others might not share, just start the conversation…. you could be very pleasantly surprised!

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