Why Groupthink Never Went Away
First identified in the 1970s, our capacity for flawed decision-making is unchanged
By Andrew Hill
The psychologist who did most to publicise the theory of groupthink would have turned 100 this month.
Astonishingly, it is nearly half a century since Irving Janis published the study that detected groupthink at the root of such foreign policy disasters as the US invasion of Cuba’s Bay of Pigs, the failure to anticipate the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and the escalation of the Vietnam war.
Many unhappy returns. Janis identified most of the basic ways to curb this flaw in collective decision-making in the 1970s. But groupthink still cripples corporate boards, leads politicians into military misadventures, and threatens economic stability. It has been blamed for the ill-judged invasion and occupation of Iraq, the Volkswagen emissions scandal (among many other corporate calamities), failures to forecast the financial crisis and even the fragile governance of Elon Musk’s carmaker Tesla.
Social scientists have had a field day trying to test what Janis described. They have established pretty conclusively that impartial leadership is vital to avoid groupthink. As chair, if you start the meeting by declaring what you expect it to achieve then…
