Most decisions don't fail because the team lacked effort. They fail because the decision room was poorly designed. Same backgrounds. Same work history. Same mental models. By the time the question is asked, the outcome is already baked in. A "wise panel" is simply a decision group built for coverage — diversity that disrupts conformity, experience that reflects reality, and cognitive diversity that stops everyone optimising for the same two things.

What a "Wise Panel" Actually Is (And Why Most Panels Fail)

A wise panel isn't about seniority, consensus, or representation theatre. It's a small group designed for decision quality, not hierarchy.

Most decision groups fail before the question is asked. They're built around availability (who's in the room), rank (who has the title), or comfort (who thinks like us). The result? Over-weighted functions, missing perspectives, and the same decision style repeated six times over. You get speed, but you lose sight.

The difference between a panel and a wise panel comes down to three things: the right mix of diversity, the right coverage of experience, and the right balance of cognitive styles. Get those wrong, and you're just running a well-catered focus group.

Ingredient 1 — Diversity (Outward-Facing Diversity That Disrupts Conformity)

Diversity isn't a nice-to-have. It changes what gets said, challenged, and considered. But not all diversity works the same way in decision-making.

The evidence is stark. Research by psychologist Samuel Sommers at Tufts University showed that when you add people of different ethnicities to a decision group, the entire group becomes more thorough—white members cited more case facts, made fewer errors, and were more open to discussing difficult issues than their counterparts in homogeneous groups. The improvement wasn't just because of what diverse members contributed. It was because their presence changed how everyone in the room thought and engaged.

This aligns with research by Dr. Juliet Bourke, who challenges what she calls the "saviour mythology" — the idea that you bring in one different voice to save the day. Real diversity of thinking comes from ensuring different elements of the group come together, where everyone has a slightly different frame of reference. That's when you get rich, robust decision-making.

What matters most is diversity that introduces different lived realities, different stakeholder perspectives, and different questions. Gender, ethnicity, age, disability, cultural background — these aren't symbolic. They shift the frame. They surface risks that homogenous groups don't see coming.

The trap is tokenism: one person carrying the weight of "diverse perspective" while the group dynamic stays the same. Sommers' research showed this clearly — diverse juries needed at least two members from underrepresented groups to create genuine impact. To avoid tokenism, you design for coverage, not optics. Ask: whose reality are we missing? Whose stakes aren't in the room? Then build the panel to match the decision's reach.

Ingredient 2 — Experience (Domain Coverage, Not Job Titles)

Job titles tell you where someone sits. Experience types tell you what they see.

Decision risk often comes from missing work types. Boeing's 737 MAX disasters show what happens when you remove the wrong experience from the room. After Boeing merged with McDonnell Douglas in 1997, leadership shifted from engineers to business executives focused on financial metrics. Engineers were sidelined—even "maligned and marginalized as a class." The corporate headquarters moved to Chicago, separating executives from the engineering teams in Seattle. The result? Decisions driven by cost and speed, not safety and engineering reality. 346 people died.

As Boeing's former chief engineer for commercial airplanes put it: "There was a disconnect between the engineers on the ground and the executives in the boardroom, and this disconnect had tragic consequences."

A panel stacked with strategists will optimise for vision but miss delivery constraints. A panel full of financial executives will solve for profitability but overlook technical and safety reality. You need both — and more.

A "wise panel" doesn't need all experience types every time. But it needs the ones that match the decision's risk profile. Launching a new product? You need commercial, delivery, and customer reality. Making a policy submission? You need policy expertise, communications capability, and lived-experience insight. Building aircraft? You need engineers in the room when technical decisions are made.

Missing even one can be catastrophic. That's not theory — it's pattern.

Ingredient 3 — Cognitive Diversity (Decision Frameworks, How People Decide)

People don't just have different opinions. They prioritise different evidence.

Dr. Juliet Bourke, who has advised over 200 global organizations on diversity and thinking, identifies six mental frameworks people use when solving problems. Some people instinctively anchor to outcomes (what are we trying to achieve?), others to options (how else could we do this?), evidence (what's the data?), risk (what could go wrong?), process (how do we implement this?), or people (who's affected, who needs capabilities?)

These are decision frameworks — mental filters for what matters most. They're shaped by personality, experience, and work history. And they cluster. When Bourke surveyed senior leaders, 75% said 'outcomes' and 'options' were the most important things to focus on when solving a problem. Leadership teams skew heavily toward the "what" and "how," while underweighting people, evidence, and risk — the "who," "why," and "what if."

That clustering costs you. When groups solve problems dominantly from one or two perspectives, they have a high error rate. Using just one perspective builds in an error rate of about 30 percent. It's how you end up with bold strategies that ignore implementation pain. It's how you get consensus that crumbles under scrutiny. It's how you move fast and break trust.

Bourke's research shows teams are 20% more likely to report making high-quality decisions when they have genuine cognitive diversity, and get a 20% premium in innovative capability. But here's what matters: it's not about getting random people together and hoping magic happens. You need people who each bring slightly different approaches to solving problems, with a certain level of skill and capability.

Cognitive diversity means building a panel where people are wired to pay attention to different things. Not because they're being devil's advocates. Because it's how they naturally process decisions.

At Wizer, we measure this through Decision Profiles — six archetypes that map to different decision frameworks:

• Explorers — prioritise outcomes, options, innovation, possibility

• Achievers — prioritise outcomes, process, execution, momentum

• Deliverers — prioritise process, people, implementation, stakeholder buy-in

• Collaborators — prioritise people, evidence, relationships, inclusion

• Analyzers — prioritise evidence, risk, data, rigour

• Guardians — prioritise risk, process, governance, safeguards

A panel made up entirely of Achievers will move fast, decide confidently, and miss half the story. A panel with no Guardians will underestimate risk. A panel with no Explorers will optimise the present and miss the future.

Wise panels don't eliminate bias. They balance it.

Building a Wise Panel with Wizer Technologies

Step 1: Name the Decision

Be specific. What are we trying to decide, by when? "Should we launch this product?" is different from "Should we delay the launch to address X risk?" Clarity here shapes everything downstream.

Step 2: Select Required Experience Types

Use the six experience categories as a checklist. Which work types does this decision touch? Don't default to "strategy + finance + comms." Be honest about where the real risk sits.

Step 3: Balance Decision Styles

Avoid "same archetype, different LinkedIn headshot." Use Decision Profiles (or a proxy like work history and decision-making patterns) to ensure you're not stacking the same cognitive style six times. You want tension — productive tension.

Step 5: Use a Strength Check and Fill the Gaps

This is where most organizations hit a wall. You've mapped your decision, identified the risks, selected experience types, and tried to balance cognitive styles — but how do you actually know if your panel is strong enough? Where are the blind spots you can't see?

This is where Wizer changes the game.

Wizer is the only platform that combines three capabilities no other technology or solution offers:

1. Decision Profiles — measures how each person naturally processes decisions (what they pay attention to, what they prioritize)

2. Panel Strength Engine — shows you in real-time how strong your proposed panel is across diversity, experience, and cognitive balance

3. Live Recommendation Engine — tells you exactly who to add to close the gaps and round out the system

Instead of guessing or relying on intuition, you see immediately: what's covered, what's missing, where the panel is fragile. The Recommendation Engine doesn't just flag problems — it shows you specific people who can fill the gaps, based on their Decision Profile and experience.

Even without software, you can do this manually by mapping your panel against the three ingredients and asking: what are we not seeing? But what takes hours of analysis and gut-feel happens instantly in Wizer.

How to Get Started

Building wise panels isn't complicated. It's deliberate. It starts with asking better questions before you ask the decision question: whose reality are we missing? What work types does this decision touch? What cognitive styles are we stacking — and what are we excluding?

At Wizer, we've built a platform that makes this fast and evidence-based. Decision Profiles map cognitive diversity. Panel Strength shows you where your panel is strong or fragile. The Recommendation Engine tells you exactly who to add to close the gap.

But even without software, you can start today: map your next decision panel against diversity, experience, and cognitive style. Ask what's missing. Then fix it before you ask the question.

Because the quality of your decisions is determined long before the meeting starts. Over 90% of our clients start with Decision Profile Mapping. Sign your Organization up today: https://www.wizer.business/use-cases/decision-profile-map

Frequently Asked Questions

What is a wise panel?

A wise panel is a decision group designed for decision quality, not hierarchy or consensus. It's built around three ingredients: diversity that disrupts conformity, experience that reflects the reality of the decision, and cognitive diversity that balances decision-making styles. The goal is coverage — ensuring the decision room has the perspectives, expertise, and mental models needed to see the full picture.

How many people should be on a decision panel?

Research shows that wise crowd effects begin to emerge at 6 people. For decision panels specifically, you need at least 7 people to cover all types of cognitive diversity — the six decision frameworks that people naturally prioritize (outcomes, options, evidence, risk, process, people) require a minimum of 7 panel members to ensure genuine balance.

Too small, and you risk groupthink or one dominant voice. The exact number depends on the decision's complexity and risk profile, but the principle is the same: large enough for genuine cognitive diversity and coverage of the experience types the decision needs.

What's the difference between diversity and cognitive diversity?

Diversity typically refers to outward characteristics like gender, ethnicity, age, and background. It matters because it brings different lived realities and stakeholder perspectives into the room. Cognitive diversity refers to how people think, prioritise, and process decisions — what they pay attention to, what evidence they weigh, and what risks they instinctively scan for. Both matter. Diversity shapes what gets raised. Cognitive diversity shapes how it gets weighed.

How do you stop groupthink in leadership teams?

Groupthink happens when decision-makers share the same mental models, optimise for the same outcomes, and avoid dissent. To disrupt it, you need to design the decision room differently: include people with different work histories and decision frameworks, surface risk and alternative perspectives early, and create conditions where challenge is expected, not awkward. At Wizer, we use Decision Profiles and Panel Strength diagnostics to identify where leadership teams cluster — and where they need cognitive balance.

What experience should be represented in complex decisions?

It depends on the decision's risk profile, but most complex decisions touch multiple work types: Strategy & Planning (long-term thinking), Creative & Program Design (innovation and user experience), Delivery & Operations (implementation reality), Commercial & Financial (cost and sustainability), Engagement & Communications (stakeholder trust and narrative), and Policy & Government (regulation and political context). Missing even one can create blind spots. A wise panel doesn't need all six every time — but it needs the ones that match the decision's scope and risk.