Reader Question: This is a common problem with my team- – groupthink. I don’t know if it’s a symptom of laziness or if we just aren’t a strong group of problem solvers. How can we defeat this problem.
Our response: I’ve always heard about the trappings of groupthink. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard from managers, “Beware of groupthink.” There’s no doubt that groupthink rears its ugly head in almost any team. Half the battle of defeating groupthink is all about identifying and acknowledging its existence rather than ignoring it.
When a team approaches a problem, it is the job of the leader to make sure that the groupthink trap is on everyone’s mind. The only way to beat it, is to know that it’s coming and actively challenge it. It’s the responsibility of the leader to call out groupthink the moment it starts to occur. The team acknowledges it and takes a step back to change perspective.
Of utmost importance however is to eliminate passengers from the team. I think of a “passenger” as someone who is just along for the ride and who isn’t willing to participate actively in the team. A passenger waits for someone else to take control and isn’t willing to take the reins. We can eliminate passengers by actually replacing them with active participants; but the best leaders can transform a passenger. A good leader will put the passenger in a position where they cannot just go along for the ride. Just by asking the passenger, ‘what do you think’ helps to get the out of the role of the passenger and gets them thinking and acting critically.
Also please note that David Chaudron has some interesting things to say about diagnosing team problems such as groupthink in his article here: http://www.bizforum.org/Journal/www_journalDGC003.htm.
photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/grafixer/3527166081/
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