Got Groupthink?

Talk about strange gifts from interesting places. AbsoluteAstronomy.com has a great article on groupthink, a concept frequently discussed at PublicOrgTheory, including lists of conditions that might encourage groupthink, symptoms indicative of groupthink, and symptons of decisions affected by groupthink. You can use these lists to make preliminary diagnoses of the organizations around you (but please do investigate more deeply before taking action):

Janis cited a number of antecedent conditions that would be likely to encourage groupthink. These include:

• Insulation of the group
• High group cohesiveness
• Directive leadership
• Lack of norms requiring methodical procedures
• Homogeneity of members’ social background and ideology
• High stress from external threats with low hope of a better solution than the one offered by the leader(s)

Janis listed eight symptoms that he said were indicative of groupthink:

1. Illusion of invulnerability
2. Unquestioned belief in the inherent morality of the group
3. Collective rationalization
4. Shared stereotypes of outgroup, particularly opponents
5. Self-censorship; members withhold criticisms
6. Illusion of unanimity
7. Direct pressure on dissenters to conform
8. Self-appointed “mindguards” protect the group from negative information

Finally, the seven symptoms of decision affected by groupthink are:

1. Incomplete survey of alternatives
2. Incomplete survey of objectives
3. Failure to examine risks of preferred choice
4. Failure to re-appraise initially rejected alternatives
5. Poor information search
6. Selective bias
7. Failure to work out contingency plans

A precocious person could print this out to take to meetings. It’s like a play-at-home PublicOrgTheory!