25
THE CALAMITY OF CONFORMITY
Groupthink
Have you ever bitten your tongue in a meeting? Surely. You sit there, say nothing
and nod along to proposals. After all, you don’t want to be the (eternal) naysayer.
Moreover, you might not be 100% sure why you disagree, whereas the others are
unanimous – and far from stupid. So you keep your mouth shut for another day.
When everyone
thinks and acts like this,
groupthink
is at work: this is where a
group of smart people makes reckless decisions because everyone aligns their
opinions with the supposed consensus. Thus, motions are passed that each
individual group member would have rejected
if no peer pressure had been
involved.
Groupthink
is a special branch of
social proof
, a flaw that we discussed
in chapter 4.
In March 1960, the U.S. Secret Service began to mobilise anti-communist
exiles from Cuba,
most of them living in Miami, to use against Fidel Castro’s
regime. In January 1961, two days after taking office, President Kennedy was
informed about the secret plan to invade Cuba. Three months later, a key meeting
took place at the White House in which Kennedy and his advisers all voted in
favour of the invasion. On 17 April 1961, a brigade of 1,400 exiled Cubans landed
at the Bay of Pigs, on Cuba’s south coast, with the help of the U.S. Navy, the Air
Force and the CIA. The aim was to overthrow Castro’s government. However,
nothing went as planned. On the first day, not a single supply ship reached the
coast. The Cuban air force sank the first two and the next two turned around and
fled back to the U.S.
A day later, Castro’s army completely surrounded the
brigade. On the third day, the 1,200 survivors were taken into custody and sent to
military prisons. Kennedy’s invasion of the Bay of Pigs is regarded as one of the
biggest flops in American foreign policy. That such an absurd plan was ever
agreed upon,
never mind put into action, is astounding. All of the assumptions
that spoke in favour of invasion were erroneous. For example, Kennedy’s team
completely underestimated the strength of Cuba’s air force. Also, it was expected
that, in an emergency, the brigade would be able
to hide in the Escambray
mountains and carry out an underground war against Castro from there. A glance
at the map shows that the refuge was 100 miles away from the Bay of Pigs, with
an insurmountable swamp in between. And yet, Kennedy and his advisers were
among the most intelligent people to ever run an American government. What
went wrong between January and April of 1961?
Psychology professor Irving Janis has studied many fiascos. He concluded that
they share the following pattern: members of a close-knit group cultivate team
spirit by (unconsciously) building illusions. One of these fantasies is a belief in
invincibility: ‘If both our leader [in this case, Kennedy] and the group are confident
that the plan will work, then luck will be on our side.’ Next comes the illusion of
unanimity: if the
others are of the same opinion, any dissenting view must be
wrong. No one wants to be the naysayer who destroys team unity. Finally, each
person is happy to be part of the group. Expressing reservations could mean
exclusion from it.
In our evolutionary past, such banishment guaranteed death;
hence our strong urge to remain in the group’s favour.
The business world
is no stranger to
groupthink
. A classic example is the fate
of the world-class airline Swissair. Here, a group of highly paid consultants rallied
around the former CEO and, bolstered by
the euphoria of past successes,
developed a high-risk expansion strategy (including the acquisition of several
European airlines). The zealous team built up such a strong consensus that even
rational reservations were suppressed, leading to the airline’s collapse in 2001.
If you ever find yourself in a tight, unanimous group, you must speak your mind,
even if your team does not like it. Question tacit assumptions,
even if you risk
expulsion from the warm nest. And, if you lead a group, appoint someone as
devil’s advocate. She will not be the most popular member of the team, but she
might be the most important.
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