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Fight Groupthink

To uncover options

Paul Sloane
Thu, 10/23/2014 - 13:32
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One of the most common obstacles to effective decision making by teams is groupthink. The term is used to describe the observation that many groups make poor decisions because they try to reach a consensus and minimize conflict. In doing so they suppress dissenting viewpoints, eschew controversial issues, and isolate themselves from outside influences. The result is that they do not seriously consider alternatives to the group’s view.

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The phenomenon of groupthink was investigated in the 1970s by Irving Janis, a research psychologist at Yale University. He identified various causes of this problem, including the desire for cohesiveness, lack of impartial leadership, homogeneity of group members, and stressful external threats.

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Submitted by umberto mario tunesi on Thu, 10/23/2014 - 10:05

Niccolò Machiavelli

He wrote about historical cases that come and go: group think could be one of his many examples. It was fashionable a few decades ago, now it isn't anymore. What will the future be like? We aren't looking for efficient processes, we look for news, instead, that are all but news. We knew the drawbacks of groupthink since its very first implementation: why did it take so long to realize its failures? May be in the next year or so we'll also realize that what we've so hardly worked at to prevent risk effects will be completely useless.

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