A simple technique to decouple the modal equations of motion of a linear nonclassically damped system is to neglect the off-diagonal elements of the modal damping matrix. This is called the decoupling approximation. It has generally been conceived that smallness of off-diagonal elements relative to the diagonal ones would validate its use. In this study, the relationship between elements of the modal damping matrix and the error arising from the decoupling approximation is explored. It is shown that the enhanced diagonal dominance of the modal damping matrix need not diminish the error. In fact, the error may even increase. Moreover, the error is found to be strongly dependent on the exitation. Therefore, within the practical range of engineering applications, diagonal dominance of the modal damping matrix would not be sufficient to supress the effect of modal coupling.