Great minds may think alike, but if your company’s employees always share the same opinion, your decision making and critical thinking abilities can suffer. Groupthink is a phenomenon that can spread throughout your organization and hold your employees back from making decisions that could steer you away from mistakes or propel you forward.
Groupthink is a term first coined by social psychologist Irving L. Janis in 1972. It centers around the fact that people will strive for consensus within a group, even setting aside their own personal beliefs to adopt the opinion of the rest of the group, according to Very Well Mind. Those people who don’t agree with the rest of the group remain quiet so as not to disrupt the peace. Think of groupthink as going along with everyone else because it is easier than being contrary. The Abilene Paradox further explains this theory.
The Abilene Paradox was coined by Professor Jerry B. Harvey in his book, “The Abilene Paradox and Other Meditations on Management.” It is best explained by a parable of a family who all agree to take an uncomfortable trip that no one really wants to go on.
The family was spending a hot afternoon in Texas playing dominoes when one suggests they take a trip to Abilene for dinner. Everyone has reservations but they all not only agree to go, but they also say it sounds like a great idea. The trip is terrible; the drive is long and hot and the food is bad. They return home four hours later and one exclaims that it was a great trip. It is then that each admits they didn’t want to go but only said yes to satisfy the group. The one who suggested the trip only did so because he thought everyone was bored. The group is perplexed that each decided to take a trip none wanted.
According to Psychology Today, there are differences between groupthink and the Abilene paradox. In groupthink, the collective individuals actually agree with each other, both privately and collectively. In the Abilene paradox, the members privately disagree with the collective unanimous decision.
Understanding the symptoms of groupthink can help employers identify if the company is suffering from it. Symptoms include a sense of invulnerability that leads to overconfidence and the rationalization of problems that explain away any threats to success, according to the Small Business Chronicle. Actions are seen as part of the greater good and any opponents to the group are stereotyped as unintelligent. Other symptoms include a feeling of unanimity, self-censorship and blocking criticism of others.
There are a number of causes why groupthink might sink into your company culture. According to Very Well Mind, these include:
According to Indeed, recognizing groupthink in your company requires looking at some of its signs.
One of the most well-known examples of groupthink, with dire consequences, is the Challenger Space Shuttle disaster. The NASA orbiter blew apart about 73 seconds after lifting off from Cape Canaveral, Fla., in 1986, killing all seven astronauts on board. Prior to lift off, engineers expressed concerns about the seals on the rock booster being able to work properly in frigid temperatures. Pressure to push the Challenger’s mission forward, even from the White House, and repeated delays, led the NASA team to adopt a groupthink mentality and push ahead with the mission, ignoring concerns and adopting a consensus no one agreed with.
An entrepreneurial example is the collapse of Swissair, a Swiss airline company that believed it was so financially stable it was known as the Flying Bank. The company believed it was invulnerable and its morality superior. The illusion of invulnerability led the company to underestimate the elements leading to its failure. Before it collapsed, Swissair reduced its board, losing its industrial expertise.
A hypothetical example that works for any company would be a nonproductive strategic planning meeting. A company suffering from groupthink won’t receive new ideas from the group. Any bad ideas, especially coming from the leader, will be agreed to, even if the employees think differently or have concerns. An ineffective planning session could derail your company from meeting goals that would allow it to innovate and grow.
As the examples above illustrate, groupthink leads to poor decision making. While this decision-making led to fatalities in the Challenger example, groupthink can cause companies to lose productivity, sales and even employees.
Environments that don’t allow employees to express their opinion leads to the inability to solve problems, assess risk and may even contribute to biases. Consider if you have a meeting about solving safety issues on a job site or manufacturing line and your employees are too disengaged to care or offer solutions. A solution suggested by a manager might be a bad idea or even unfeasible, slowing down production. And if that meeting shuts down dissenting opinions, employees who aren’t heard or are disengaged will likely find employment somewhere else.
While contention in the workplace isn’t necessarily a great thing, groupthink is on the opposite end of the spectrum. Groupthink doesn’t allow for differing opinions that can contribute to changing an idea to make it better.
According to Very Well Mind, groupthink can cause:
Overcoming groupthink can happen by changing the way business is conducted in the short- and long-term.
In the short term:
In the long term:
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