Groupthink is the practice of thinking as a group, typically resulting in unchallenged, poor-quality decision-making.
It results from high group cohesiveness, which sounds desirable except when group members avoid speaking against decisions or sharing alternative points of view to maintain harmony and friendships.
Improve the quality of decision-making by exploring alternatives and hearing different perspectives with these three simple hacks.
- Go outside the group – Consider who is impacted by the decision and how to capture their point of view. The exec team in which I was a member used surveys, one-on-one interviews, consultation groups and feedback from our sub-teams to gather stakeholder perspectives.
- Co-opt into the group – Identify who you could bring into the team to shake things up. Inviting an expert from another part of the organisation or an external consultant to present a different perspective or act as a critical friend for a defined period adds value.
- Gamify your processes – If you purposely plan it into your team processes, sharing dissenting views need not be negative. In our team, we played the “Devil’s Advocate Card”. At the start of our meetings, a team member was nominated to play the card at any time to get different perspectives and alternatives into the decision-making process.
What decisions are your team facing and how will they avoid groupthink?
