Groupthink is a classic decision-making bias that can occur with groups or teams. It shows a failure to examine all the alternatives. History is littered with bad decisions from the Trojan horse, Napoleon's invasion of Russia. More recently the Deepwater Horizon disaster, Toyota's failure to recall cars with brake issues, VW's emissions sandal.
Corporate Boards, Parliaments, Global Gatherings like the Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, are all built on a simple theory of problem-solving.
Get enough smart and powerful people in a room and they will figure it out. They may be misguided.
The very traits that compel people toward leadership roles can be obstacles when it comes to collaboration.
The result, according to a recent study by a well-known business school in the US, is that high-powered individuals working in a group can be less creative and effective than lower ranked teams.
The higher the concentration of high-ranking executives - the more a group struggle to complete the task.
The research found that they competed for status, were less focused on the assignment and tended to share less information with each other.
Power can be both an obstacle and a motivator when it comes to performance.
Here is a good example of a bureaucratic body suffering from Groupthink.
The report said the whole approach to the eurozone was characterised by “groupthink” and intellectual capture. They had no fall-back plans on how to tackle a systemic crisis in the eurozone – or how to deal with the politics of a multinational currency union – because they had ruled out any possibility that it could happen.
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