The insanity of groupthink

📖 “In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule.” -Friedrich Nietzsche

Nietzsche's thinking about how individuals interact when in a group closely aligns with the concept defined by Irving Janis in 1972 called "groupthink."

✏️ Groupthink is a psychological phenomenon in which people strive for consensus within a group. In many cases, people will set aside their own personal beliefs or adopt the opinions of the rest of the group. Individuals with differing opinions, or even opposed to the group's decisions frequently remain quiet in order to keep the peace rather than disrupt the crowd's uniformity.

This phenomenon is common in the workplace, as the decision-making cycle continues to compress, and the pressure to deliver increases. It's a danger to leaders and managers because it reduces the likelihood of teams identifying and mitigating risk. Creativity and innovation is pushed to the side in favor of "going along to get along." Teams may be slow to identify challenges and issues with their solutions because they have formed a belief that since they all agreed, the idea is right and the data is wrong!

Leaders need to be vigilant, as it can be easy for high performing teams to succumb to groupthink. Janis (and I) suggest to keep an eye out for the following tell-tale symptoms of groupthink.

1. Rationalization- are they making excuses for poor results, or discounting data that shows their solutions are performing poorly?
2. llusions of unanimity- do you observe NO discussions of risks, or no one voicing concerns, differing opinions or ulterior options?
3. Self-censorship- Do some members remain quite, or refrain from sharing their views because they assume the group must be right?
4. Lack of transparency- do you observe teams hiding important information or downplaying problematic data?
5. Illusions of invulnerability- are team leaders overly optimistic, or seem to be engaging in irrational risk taking?

 Not liking what you see in your group? 

You might start by looking at the environment around the team...

Groupthink is more likely to occur when their leader is considered powerful and charismatic. Leaders who are more directive may create an environment of fear which drives groupthink as a way to survive. Conversely, transformational leaders can also produce groupthink because group members are more willing to buy into the vision and will self-edit criticism or ulterior ideas.

In addition to leadership, other contributing factors to the groupthink phenomenon include a lack of personal knowledge or expertise in the problem space the group operates in, and external stress such as very tight deadlines, or extremely high consequences for failure. People are taught from an early age that conformity is desirable, and that being an outlier is undesirable - so it's easy to see how even the highest performing team can fall into a condition of groupthink.

So, what to do?

As a leader, there are some things that can be done to begin to correct the groupthink condition…

1. Avoid stating your opinions or ideas first.
2. Assign at least one individual to be the “devil’s advocate” or to challenge each of the group’s ideas or decisions.
3. Encourage members with different ideas – dissent or challenges to the prevailing opinion should be embraced and rewarded.
4. Reward creativity and outside-the-box ideas and give the group ample opportunities to share individual ideas and thoughts.
5. Identify ways to surface dissent – activities like planning poker are a good way to surface different opinions or concerns with the current solution.
6. Ensure the team's KPIs and OKRs are not reinforcing the wrong behaviors.  What is being measured?  Are those measurements causing the team to act in an unhealthy way?
7. Consider allowing a way to submit anonymous comments, ideas or opinions.

Diverse individuals with differing perspectives and ideas are an asset, and could be a key competetive advantage if they are encouraged to bring those ideas to the group for consideration.  If your team doesn't feel safe to contribute, they won't... and your solutions (and your users) will suffer for it.

Do you observe groupthink in your teams?  What have you done to combat it?

We all win together!