"Where all think alike, no one thinks very much" – Anon.

Jenny Rogers goes further. She says that a healthy organisation is one where the prevailing consensus is continually questioned. Not to do so is to court disaster

• The US Senate’s remarkable investigation into the run up to war in Iraq describes how the flimsiness of Intelligence was not allowed to get in the way of the answer politicians required.
• Our own Butler Report gave a more muted version of the same phenomenon.
• Marks & Spencer still cannot recover from the debacles of 1998. While retail rivals acted, the shared belief inside the company was that their position was unassailable.
• Sainsbury scoffed at Tesco’s Clubcard scheme and is now, probably too late, trying to play catch-up with Nectar. Tesco’s market share is 27% and growing. Sainsbury’s is 15% and going backwards.

MI6, the CIA, Sainsbury, M&S – in every case, these organisations have created powerful barriers against challenging their prevailing consensus. In every case, the damage, both tangible and intangible has been enormous.

What causes groupthink?

The answer is laughably simple. Human beings are herd animals. We cannot bear separation because our need to be included is hard-wired into our brains.

Typically there are a number of give-aways. There may be a theory of some kind which claims some sort of universal truth. Or there may be slogans and clichés which are substitutes for real thinking.

Then there is fear of what might happen if the prevailing consensus is challenged. We dread being the ones to speak out and can see all too clearly what happens to those who do. John Morrison, former deputy head of the defence intelligence staff spoke out on the BBC’s Panorama programme, saying that when the Prime Minister told MPs that there was a current and serious threat from Iraq, he could almost hear the collective raspberry going up around Whitehall. Mr Morrison’s contract has not been renewed.

We may also use the excuse of loyalty and peer pressure to avoid challenge. Finally there is save-my-skin selective remembering and straight lying, either to oneself or to others.

What can organisations do to guard against groupthink?

• Look to your values. Most organisations publish a list of them including claims to honesty, openness and willingness to embrace creative conflict. Ask your team how far you and the rest of the organisation are actually living your values in everyday experience. Then ask the people who report to you the same question. If the answer is a resounding set of positives: brilliant. Most of us will get some deeply uncomfortable shocks.
  
  Deal with the gaps between espoused values and values-in-action. Diagnosis is one thing, but what are you going to do to institute remedies?
• Create a feedback culture. Failing organisations inevitably prove to be Feedback Exclusion Zones. People speak truth in corridors but not in public. Thus the fantasies of complacency are nurtured. When the organisation starts to unravel, the corridor-complainers are the first to say they forecast disaster, but what prevented them from speaking out earlier?
• Feedback deficit starts at the top. When did your Chief Executive last get honest feedback? The formality of the 360-degree questionnaire will not on its own create a feedback culture. Healthy organisations exchange both positive and critical feedback all the time.
• Banish fear. Every management guru worthy of the name, has made this point. When people are afraid of getting blamed, they often prove to be right. When something goes wrong the most important question is how did this happen, not whose fault is it?
• Accept that people at the top don’t know best. No senior manager can do all the thinking solo. History is full of the disastrous judgements made by seniors who were never confronted until it was too late. If you are a senior manager yourself, look for charming challengers as colleagues, not toadies.
• Identify and then face up to your excuses. All organisations develop collective excuses. Do your excuses really hold up under logical scrutiny?
• Cherish your dissenters. They cut through myth and fantasy and are unimpressed by tradition. They think the unthinkable and don’t have a fear of their seniors. They ask the innocent question: why do we do it like this? If they feel doubt, they express it. If they are not convinced, they say so. Dissenters are uncomfortable for organisations. They often lack social grace. They needed to be managed constructively, not forced out.
• Reward innovation. Remember Tom Peters skunkworks from In Search of Excellence? Skunkworks are groups set the specific task of going against the grain to seek innovation. Organisations that formally and informally do this have conspicuous records of success. The BBC’s Making it Happen is a current example of involving an extremely large number of people in answering the question: what do we need to do to make the BBC the most creative organisation in the world? Only time will tell, but so far, it looks good!