There
was a post on LinkedIn just the other day where someone had posted a picture
with the caption “click like and type 6 and watch what happens” – and at the
time I saw this so called discussion over 3,500 highly qualified people had
‘liked’ this discussion, typed ‘6’ and then written a comment along the lines
of “hey, nothing happened” or “what’s meant to happen?”
Of
course a handful of people, less than 1%, had commented that this was a con and
they couldn’t believe how gullible people were as it’s clear nothing is going
to happen because it’s a static picture lol. Apparently these kind of ‘posts’
are quite common according to some – and yet thousands of people ‘fall’ for
them each time.
Then
you have the ‘discussions’ (I use the term loosely) where you’re given a pretty
simple mathematical puzzle to solve with the headline – ‘only a genius can
solve this’ – which translates into ‘a four year old can solve this’; but yet
again thousands of highly qualified people participate and answer the obvious
question – I assume because they desperately want to be hailed as a ‘genius’.
What
shocks me is that it appears these people are ‘shepherds’ in the business
world, yet become ‘sheep’ in the world of social media where many people can
get caught in ‘following the crowd’ just to be trendy or whatever. Where for a
millisecond they lose complete confidence and have a desperate desire to be ‘seen’
as a genius along with the other few thousand people – I assume also believing
in that millisecond that recruiters and potential clients will take their ‘genius’
(of a four year old) into account.
In
a sense it’s an extension of ‘groupthink psychological theory’ where people
fail to think rationally as they see one person has ‘done’ the task and assume
– all evidence to the contrary – that maybe there’s something to see and their
inquisitiveness takes over and they follow the crowd.
Some
of the participants in the discussion had the courage to write later that they
couldn’t believe how gullible they had been – but as we know in business, it
only takes one error of judgement to significantly damage and organisation’s or
individual’s future.
Of
course, as one participant had mentioned in the comments, there’s a more
sinister side to this, where it shows how easily people can be fooled into
forgetting what they genuinely know to be true and instead can be so easily led
to follow a set of instructions ‘believing that a miracle is truly going to
happen.’ In these particular cases no damage was done – but that’s just in
these examples.
In
a world where ‘front line news’ has now become entertainment first and real
facts second; politics is about short term tenure rather than long term
prosperity; and where many businesses lack genuine accountability at the very
top in that constant year-on-year search for profit maximisation – how do we
ensure we develop future generations of shepherds, in a society that wants to
encourage them to be sheep?
In
an on-line article in CommunicationTheory.Org they remind us that “Groupthink
is an occurrence where by a group comes to a unanimous decision about a
possible action despite the existence of fact that points to another correct
course of action. This term was first given by Irving Janis who was a social
psychologist. His main aim was to understand how a group of individuals came up
with excellent decisions one time and totally messed up ones at other times. According
to Irving, in a group sometimes there comes a situation when all the members of
the group think it is more important to come to a unanimous decision than to
carefully go through all their options to get at the most beneficial course of
action.”
Also
the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary (2010) defines Groupthink as “a pattern
of thought characterized by self-deception, forced manufacture of consent, and
conformity to group values and ethics.”
Groupthink
as it currently stands is not accepted by everyone and James Rose highlights
how “Janis (1972, 1982) defined the groupthink model to describe a potential
downside that groups face where conformity pressure can lead to defective
decision-making. Janis specified symptoms of groupthink and steps groups can
take to prevent groupthink. Researchers have completed many case studies where
groupthink appears to factor into poor decisions. It appears groupthink occurs
across a wide spectrum of groups. Experimental results, however, are limited
and at best give mixed results. A key question is whether groupthink is a myth
(Fuller & Aldag, 1998) or whether improved experimental approaches will
validate the model. Mohamed and Wiebe (1996) advocated, - the nature of the
theory is still unclear. This ambiguity represents a major barrier to theory
testing, (p.51).”
Yet
there are more pressing matters for future generations than Groupthink. ‘We’
first need to encourage children to act and think as individuals and encourage
them to realise that learning and true innovation, means challenging the status
quo. How you challenge the status quo is for another article – and yes, has a
huge impact on how your thoughts and ideas will be received in any setting,
whether in business or your personal life.
But
we need to ensure we create environments that encourage future generations not
to become sheep and simply follow ‘groups’ because it appears to be the ‘cool’
thing to do and feeling this allows them to feel more accepted by society. This
isn’t just within the education system – but the business sector needs to look
beyond ‘conforming’ cultures that encourage a ‘groupthink’ mentality – to creating
environments and cultures that encourages individualism so that organisations
can genuinely maximise their long-term optimal potential.
References
Groupthink
in Group Communication, Organisational Communication, Psychology, Behavioral and
Social Science [Online: http://communicationtheory.org/groupthink/] 12.09.2015
Rose,
J.D. (2011). Diverse Perspectives on the Groupthink Theory – A Literary Review.
Emerging Leadership Journeys. Vol. 4 Issue. 1, p. 37-57.
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