Groupthink: The Hidden Danger Undermining Team Decisions

In corporate boardrooms and team meetings alike, unanimous agreement can sometimes signal a hidden problem. When the drive for harmony overtakes critical evaluation, teams fall prey to groupthink – often with disastrous results.

What Is Groupthink?

Groupthink is a psychological phenomenon where the desire for consensus within a group overrides realistic appraisal of alternative ideas or actions. First defined by Janis (1972), groupthink occurs when team members suppress dissent, avoid conflict, and conform to what they perceive as the majority view, even if they privately disagree.

Why Groupthink Is Dangerous for Teams

By definition, groupthink tends to produce non-optimal decisions and conformity, as it discourages individuals from disagreeing with leaders or peers. When teams value consensus at any cost, they often ignore warnings or alternate ideas that could avert error. 

The resulting decisions can be poorly thought-out and risky, since potential flaws go unchallenged. In a workplace setting, this means lost opportunities for innovation, blind spots in risk assessment, and a greater likelihood of ethical lapses or strategic mistakes.

Groupthink In Action: A History Of Corporate Failures

This bias toward conformity can lead to disastrous decisions. In a business context, groupthink can manifest in blind spots around risk, flawed strategies, or ethical oversights. Janis (1982) notably linked the 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion failure to groupthink, arguing that President Kennedy’s advisory group avoided critical debate in pursuit of unity. Similar patterns have been observed in corporate settings. Enron’s collapse, for example, has been attributed in part to a culture that discouraged dissent and ethical scrutiny, allowing fraudulent practices to go unchallenged (Sims & Brinkmann, 2003). Likewise, groupthink contributed to the underestimation of risk across the financial industry leading up to the 2008 global financial crisis (Esser, 1998).

Even consumer-focused failures, such as Coca-Cola’s ill-fated “New Coke” launch in 1985, illustrate the danger. Executives ignored strong market signals in favour of internal consensus, misjudging customer sentiment and triggering widespread backlash (Esser, 1998).

So how can teams avoid the groupthink trap?

Strategies To Prevent Groupthink

Thankfully, managers and teams can take proactive steps to avoid groupthink. Key strategies include:

• Encourage open dissent: Create a culture where questioning is welcomed. Leaders should actively invite objections and even designate a “devil’s advocate” to challenge prevailing views. Research finds that teams whose leaders encourage debate tend to avoid groupthink and make better decisions. (Janis, 1982)
  
  
• Neutralize leadership influence: Avoid having a dominant leader push a single viewpoint. Rotate leadership roles or have leaders refrain from stating preferences early on, to reduce pressure to conform. (Esser, 1988)
  
  
• Foster psychological safety: Ensure team members feel safe to voice concerns or unpopular opinions without fear of backlash. When people feel secure in disagreeing or admitting mistakes, groupthink is less likely to take hold. (Carmeli et al., 2009)
  
  
• Diversify perspectives: Bring in people with different backgrounds or invite outside experts to offer opinions. Homogeneous teams are far more prone to groupthink, whereas diverse groups naturally include a range of viewpoints that can challenge the status quo. (Tetlock et al., 1991)

Groupthink thrives in silence. Creating cultures that welcome questioning and reward critical thinking not only prevents failure—it drives smarter, more resilient decision-making.

By being aware of groupthink’s dangers and actively encouraging healthy debate, teams can make more informed, creative, and resilient decisions – even if that means weathering a bit of productive conflict along the way.

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References:

Carmeli, A., Brueller, D., & Dutton, J. E. (2009). Learning behaviours in the workplace: The role of high-quality interpersonal relationships and psychological safety. Systems Research and Behavioral Science, 26(1), 81–98. https://doi.org/10.1002/sres.932

Esser, J. K. (1998). Alive and well after 25 years: A review of groupthink research. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 73(2–3), 116–141. https://doi.org/10.1006/obhd.1998.2758

Janis, I. L. (1972). Victims of groupthink: A psychological study of foreign-policy decisions and fiascoes. Houghton Mifflin.

Janis, I. L. (1982). Groupthink: Psychological studies of policy decisions and fiascoes (2nd ed.). Houghton Mifflin.

Sims, R. R., & Brinkmann, J. (2003). Enron ethics (or: Culture matters more than codes). Journal of Business Ethics, 45(3), 243–256. https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1024194519380

Tetlock, P. E., Peterson, R. S., McGuire, C., Chang, S., & Feld, P. (1992). Assessing political group dynamics: A test of the groupthink model. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 63(3), 403–425. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.63.3.403