How can groupthink be prevented

Business communication explained! Discover what business communication is and how you can improve it. Take a look at these easy to follow tips. How to avoid groupthink: the essential guide. Share to Facebook. What is groupthink - and why is it a problem? How do you recognize groupthink in the workplace? What causes groupthink? How do you overcome groupthink? How to avoid groupthink. Untangle work with Workplace From informing everyone about the return to the office to adopting a hybrid way of working, Workplace makes work more simple.

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Remote work 7 minute read Working remotely: Benefits and Challenges. Business Communication 9 minute read How to solve your business communication problems. Everything is going great, maybe too great. Your team might be afraid to float new ideas or initiatives that could threaten the status quo and result in failure.

Scan the room at your next meeting. If everyone in the room shares the same experience and background, that should raise a red flag. Do your employees seem comfortable with each other? Are meetings collaborative affairs, in which employees smile and make frequent eye contact with each other?

Or do they clam up and barely look up from their phones when decision time comes? But acting like you know it all will only shut down alternative points of view. Are you ever vulnerable and open to discussion, or do you feel the need to be right at all costs?

The habit of groupthink can be hard to break, but with these strategies, you can avoid groupthink and the negative effect it can have on your company. Smart business leaders take care to cultivate a company culture of support and trust that welcomes ideas of all types.

To do that, make sure your decision-making process does the following to help avoid groupthink:. Showing that you value different communication styles speaks volumes to employees, and encourages them to open up. For clarity on a decision, a leader should be able to argue both sides. Sean Wise, professor of entrepreneurship at Ryerson, conducted a study that analyzed email communications for teams from one company. Ben Dattner, an industrial and organizational psychologist and adjunct professor at New York University, says that leaders may find groupthink leads to decisions that can have disastrous outcomes.

After the invasion failed, Kennedy tasked his younger brother, Robert, to vigorously vet any decisions that were being considered by the Executive Committee of the National Security Council.

Here are some tips from experts:. That advice is: Work alone… Not on a committee. Not on a team. If leaders harness the creativity of someone like Wozniak and channel it into more diverse collaborative efforts, then it may lead to a much better bottom-line — whether the team is friendly with one another or not. Engage outsiders. Dominant personalities can often control a meeting, especially in a sales organization like ours.

I often spend time before a meeting to connect with a variety of individuals including the presenters to gain their perspectives on the meeting topic. I want to have a feel for where people stand before they walk into that meeting. This allows me to anticipate the likely outcome and make sure each voice is considered before a decision is made. The benefit of doing this is that we get buy-in for key decisions and we succeed or fail together. Get unfiltered input. This often starts with asking the right questions — the right way.

To get unfiltered feedback, we need to ask our questions with that in mind.