tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2215553202978284468.post388250409570109466..comments2024-02-06T16:17:25.826+00:00Comments on THE GRØNMARK BLOG: James Delingpole marked Christmas Day with possibly his best article of the yearScott Gronmarkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15118026157459333174noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2215553202978284468.post-155804552000960372017-01-03T00:02:17.959+00:002017-01-03T00:02:17.959+00:00The next question is - how do organisations preven...<i>The next question is - how do organisations prevent group think?</i><br /><br />2 January, and I get homework set? Crikey.<br /><br />If anything occurs to me by way of an answer I will of course tell you.<br /><br />Meanwhile, there is the suggestion implicit perhaps in your question that actually organisations can't avoid groupthink, it's endemic, if a collection of people doesn't suffer from groupthink then that collection doesn't amount to an organisation.<br /><br />I must go and take my medication.David Mosshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12345636878071983416noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2215553202978284468.post-80770803614355931612017-01-02T15:38:41.503+00:002017-01-02T15:38:41.503+00:00Interesting. One of the ways group think managed t...Interesting. One of the ways group think managed to perpetuate itself at the BBC was the tendency for believers to classify sceptics as either (1) members of the "awkward squad" - i.e. bitter failures whose objection to the current ethos was based on resentment at being passed over for promotion - as often as not, these were people on the far left who were judged to be pretending to be far left as an excuse to moan, or (2) eccentrics (invariably conservatives) who were useful to have around in order to keep abreast of what Middle England was thinking, and who - if you only scratched the surface - would prove to be just as liberal as everyone else: after all, they were well-educated, so they couldn't actually be genuine right-wingers. <br /><br />The next question is - how do organisations prevent group think?Scott Gronmarkhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15118026157459333174noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2215553202978284468.post-73980593792560299422016-12-28T19:02:49.050+00:002016-12-28T19:02:49.050+00:00As I often say, in their book The Blunders of Our ...As I often say, in their book <a href="https://oneworld-publications.com/the-blunders-of-our-governments.html" rel="nofollow"><i>The Blunders of Our Governments</i></a> Professors Anthony King and Ivor Crewe talk about several of the causes of failure in government projects. Among them, group-think, which they blame for the Poll Tax, for example.<br /><br />Group-think was given its first academic treatment apparently by Irving J Janis, a US psychology professor. Messrs King and Crewe have this to say about it (pp.255-6):<br /><br /><i>According to Janis, whose views are now almost universally accepted, group-think is liable to occur when the members of any face-to-face group feel under pressure to maintain the group's cohesion or are anyway inclined to want to do that.<br /><br />It is also liable to occur when the group in question feels threatened by an outside group or comes, for whatever reason, to regard one or more outside individuals or groups as alien or hostile.<br /><br />Group-think need not always, but often does, manifest itself in pathological ways. A majority of the group's members may become intolerant of dissenting voices within the group and find ways, subtle or overt, of silencing them. Individual group members may begin to engage in self-censorship, suppressing any doubts they harbour about courses of action that the group seems intent on adopting. Latent disagreements may thus fail to surface, one result being that the members of the group come to believe they are unanimous when in reality they may not be.<br /><br />Meanwhile, the group is likely to become increasingly reluctant to engage with outsiders and to seek out information that might run counter to any emerging consensus. If unwelcome information does happen to come the group's way it is likely to be discounted or disregarded. Warning signs are ignored. The group at the same time fails to engage in rigorous reality-testing, with possible alternative courses of action not being realistically appraised.<br /><br />Group-think is also, in Janis's view, liable to create “an illusion of invulnerability, shared by most or all the members, which creates excessive optimism and encourages taking extreme risks”. Not least, those indulging in group-think are liable to persuade themselves that the majority of their opponents and critics are, if not actually wicked, then at least stupid, misguided and probably self-interested.</i>David Mosshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12345636878071983416noreply@blogger.com