Team Decision-Making - Beware of Groupthink

Cohesiveness, loyalty, consensus and commitment to the team are all worthy attributes of a team. However, at times, these characteristics can work against the quality of team decisions. Teams need to be vigilant in guarding against "groupthink." Eight symptoms of groupthink were developed by Irving Janis (1972):*

1. Illusion of invulnerability - Creates excessive optimism and encourages extreme risk taking;
2. Collective rationalization - Discounts warnings which might lead to reconsidering assumptions before recommitting to past decisions;
3. Unquestioned morality - Inclines members to ignore the ethical or moral consequences of decisions because of unquestioned belief in the group's inherent morality;
4. Stereotyped view - Characterizes the opposition as too evil for genuine negotiation or too weak and stupid to effectively oppose the group's purposes;
5. Direct Pressure - Discourages dissent by any member who expresses strong arguments against any of the group's stereotypes, illusions, or commitments that this type of dissent is contrary to what is expected of all loyal members;
6. Self-censorship - Reduces deviations from the apparent group consensus, reflecting each member's inclination to minimize to himself the importance of his doubts and counter arguments;
7. Illusion of unanimity - Shared by members with respect to the majority view (partly resulting from self-censorship of deviations, augmented by the false assumption that silence means consent);
8. Self appointed mindguards - Emerge from the members to protect the membership from adverse information that might shatter their shared complacency about the effectiveness and morality of their decisions.

   *List derived and adapted from Irving Janis, Victims of Groupthink, Houghton Mifflin, Boston (1972)