Defeating groupthink

The 9/11 Commission found that "groupthink" was one of the fundamental reasons the Bush administration believed that the Iraq war was necessary. Coined by Yale management professor Irving Janis in the 1970s, groupthink occurs in homogenous groups when demands for loyalty to the group and conformity to group norms override critical thinking and respect for divergent viewpoints.

In fact, when groupthink becomes dominant, consensus seeking becomes the ultimate goal of group members, not better ideas or enlightened perspectives. Janis noted that when this "clubby" atmosphere develops, "members are amiable and seek complete concurrence on every important issue, with no bickering or conflict to spoil the cozy ‘we feeling’ atmosphere."

The groupthink framework has been used to "make sense" of a number of American foreign policy blunders over the years. The Kennedy ingroup, which uncritically accepted the CIA’s disastrous Bay of Pigs plan, did not tolerate any dissent about the strategy. President Johnson’s ingroup, which keep escalating the Vietnam War despite all indications that escalation was not working, also didn’t tolerate any dissent by members.

The same was true for Admiral Kimmel who failed to plan for the possibility of an attack on Pearl Harbor despite repeated warnings. Indeed, Kimmel (and then his colleagues) laughed at the notion of Japanese aircraft carriers rounding Diamond Head in Honolulu. Janis has noted that collective laughing and joking about a danger signal is a characteristic manifestation of groupthink.

Janis’ work identified the main symptoms of groupthink: (1) an illusion of invulnerability that leads to over-optimism and encourages high risk-taking by group members. Here, there are collective efforts at rationalization of the group’s decisions so other "members" learn not to question the decision-making process; (2) an illusion of morality that leads to feelings that the group has the highest goals in mind and, therefore, should not be criticized, and (3) an illusion of unanimity where self-appointed "mind guards" emerge to protect the group from divergent information that might disrupt the group’s shared complacency about the morality of their decisions.

Consequently, given the reality of groupthink in the decision-making processes at the highest levels of government, President Bush’s was correct this week in endorsing the creation of the National Intelligence Director’s position. Support for an "intelligence czar" is tacit acknowledgement by the administration that the CIA shaped prewar intelligence on Iraq to fit the Bush Doctrine of preemptive strikes against sovereign states in the War on Terrorism.

The czar’s responsibilities will be to protect the President from this type of deception and will include several strategies: recognize the symptoms of groupthink; alert the President and Cabinet members of the dangers of groupthink; encourage group members to express doubts or criticisms about decisions; bring in qualified outsiders to meet with the group; and play the role of "devil’s advocate" to the President.

The appointment of the intelligence czar may be the best strategy for winning the terrorism war.

Here’s why. After the Bay of Pigs fiasco, President Kennedy took steps to change his in-group’s decision-making processes. This ensured that the mistakes made by the Bay of Pigs ingroup were not repeated by the Cuban Missile Crisis ingroup, even though members of the groups were essentially the same. Had groupthink dysfunctions not been identified and remedied in the two-year interim between the Bay of Pigs and Cuban Missile Crisis, there would have been a nuclear war/holocaust between the United States and the Soviet Union.

The President deserves credit for adapting the 9/11 Commission’s recommendation calling for the creation of the intelligence czar’s post. As noted earlier, other administrations have not made the necessary changes to minimize groupthink influences in the foreign policy arena. This has resulted in the unnecessary loss of (1) millions of American and foreign lives and (2) billions from the national treasury.

I still teach the groupthink concept to my students in both organization theory and leadership classes. They are amazed how well-educated educated adults, involved in decision-making at the highest levels of government and business, could place group membership over more informed (and better) policies. They are also dismayed that after a lifetime of having been told by adults to resist "peer pressure", the "best and brightest" are as equally influenced by the group acceptance norm- - albeit with a fancier name.