This past Friday, I delivered a presentation at the January 2022 meeting of ITB Partners. The theme of the topic was about building one’s independent consulting practice by leveraging your time. One of the participants was curious about how many members were following this strategy. He was interested in learning how the broader membership viewed this issue. Are we in a bubble? Are we victims of Groupthink? Not only did I think that was an excellent question, but I also promised to survey our wider membership to determine if their activities align with my recommendations. This exchange reminded me of similar situations I had encountered during my corporate career.
Wikipedia; “Groupthink – is a psychological phenomenon that occurs within a group of people in which the desire for harmony or conformity in the group results in an irrational or dysfunctional decision-making outcome. Cohesiveness, or the desire for cohesiveness, in a group may produce a tendency among its members to agree at all costs.[1] This causes the group to minimize conflict and reach a consensus decision without critical evaluation.[2][3]”
Psychologist Irving Janis calls Groupthink “a deterioration of mental efficiency. The first time I heard about the concept of Groupthink, I was an undergraduate. I wrote a short paper on the subject. At that time, I did not fully understand Groupthink as a concept. I had not witnessed it personally. It took practical experience and responsibility as a team member/leader to complete my education on this phenomenon.
Back in the day, if we thought we were limiting the full range of consideration for a question, we would ask, “are we just talking to ourselves? Are we in a bubble?” We knew that something wasn’t working the way we expected, so we must be missing critical information. In other words, we need to get input from the market and our customers.
The most striking form of Groupthink I experienced was at the beginning of my tenure with Long John Silver‘s. During my corporate orientation, I attended a presentation from a marketing research firm. Their contract was to perform a strategic analysis of the brand. It was an incredible experience. Whereas the consensus opinion of leadership had been that our primary competition was Red Lobster, the research showed that the brand was part of a different industry segment. The consumer identified the brand as a quick-service restaurant concept, but they did not think we acted like one. The service wasn’t fast, the food was too expensive, and there were no Drive Throughs, among other issues. This revelation was a shock to leadership. The recognition that they had invested their resources trying to compete in a segment they could not win was daunting. Fortunately, those findings led to a very successful repositioning of the brand.
Effects of Groupthink
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- Group dynamics overrides effective decision-making
- Inhibits learning
- It may be a subliminal way to protect one’s reputation or institutional dogma.
How to recognize Groupthink
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- The leader has a most persuasive personality, domineering even.
- Dissent is discouraged
- The workgroup demonstrates a high degree of cohesion,
- Peer pressure to conform,
- Complacency, need to get along,
- Belief in a group’s infallibility
- Own the moral high ground
- Tribalism
These actions lead to a lack of counterpoints and optimal decision-making. Fundamentally, it is a symptom of poorly managed human group dynamics and leadership.
How to prevent Groupthink
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- Recognize Groupthink as a pathology to be avoided
- Develop a process to counter-act: explore options, evaluate alternatives, encourage ideas without judgment or negative consequences,
- Test assumptions,
- Place a high value on objectivity.
- Assign a devil’s advocate – seek out the counterfactual
When we formed ITB Partners, one of our goals was to develop a learning organization that was inquisitive, collaborative, and supportive of our members. In other words, a high-performance team. Google conducted research to determine how to create high-performance teams. Their findings were surprising. “We were dead wrong. Who is on a team matters less than how the team members interact, structure their work, and view their contributions.” Groupthink is an inhibitor to high-performance teams. To avoid Groupthink and other risks that would conflict with our goal, we instituted an annual strategic review that included a survey of the members. The Annual Review helps us stay on course to achieve a healthy culture. It has been a helpful exercise that has prevented us from taking detours unsupported by the majority of the members.
Groupthink is something to be avoided by all goal-oriented teams. Regrettably, it is a phenomenon that is all too common in the broader culture. Click To TweetWe have seen it exercised in Academia, Major Corporations, the Media, and even in government, leading to well-document disasters. No institution is immune to its intrusion. If you want to foster growth and learning, recognize the risk of Groupthink and build systems to ensure that it never takes hold in your team.
For more information on Groupthink, check out these articles.
https://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newLDR_82.
htmhttps://ethicsunwrapped.utexas.edu/glossary/groupthink
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Jim Weber – Managing Partner, ITB Partners
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