Groupthink is destructive. It’s resulted in catastrophic failures for businesses, governments, and other organizations. And I’m using the term, “catastrophic,” in the most tragic and violent sense of the word. This isn’t melodrama. Put simply, groupthink exists only to destroy; and your business has to avoid it at all costs.

 

Groupthink happens when otherwise rational individuals form a tight-knit group that ultimately values group cohesion and conformity over effective decision making. As the group’s goals become more defined, group members become less interested in alternative ideas, internal criticism, expert, or outside, information, and any notions that the group is by any means weak or that its goals are by any means immoral.

 

The insidious nature of groupthink is that it can occur without the group members’ knowledge and history, the almighty judge, gives us plenty of examples in which the dreaded phenomenon has reared its ugly head(s).

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The collapse of Swissair – Once so financially stable that it was nicknamed the, “Flying Bank,” Swissair felt that it was so invulnerable that it resized its management team, ignored gross mismanagement, and neglected vital decision making efforts until it quickly went bankrupt.

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The Space Shuttle Challenger disaster – In 1986, the U.S. was in a heated, “space race,” with the Soviet Union. Both the U.S. government and NASA placed extreme pressure on themselves to successfully launch the Challenger Shuttle. This was despite the fact that the company that supplied vital parts for the shuttle reported that they simply wouldn’t work during launch. The Challenger ultimately exploded, killing all seven crew members.

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The mass resignation of the Major League Umpires Association – In 1999, 33 Umpires resigned from Major League Baseball in an attempt to strengthen their negotiating stance. They overestimated their group’s resolve and the strength of their position in Major League Baseball and ended up losing their jobs.

 

In each above-mentioned case, multiple symptoms of groupthink were present and all ended badly for the decision makers. Not every group will lead to groupthink, but we can all learn from those that have.

 

The takeaway: Understanding groupthink can help your business avoid bad decision making practices and create environments where healthy communication can flourish.