You have agreed to lead a group of students who will advise the university president on a matter of great concern to students

Question

More specifically, the president has asked you to come up with a way to encourage students to complete their undergraduate degrees in less than five years. A lot rides on your advice to the university president. What might you as a leader do to prevent groupthink from causing you to make defective decisions in your group discussions?

Answer 1

Answer: Your best bet is to address the antecedents of groupthink. Highly cohesive groups are more prone to groupthink, so you might ask to choose the members of the student group, and make sure to choose people who don't already know and like one another; this will reduce cohesiveness pressures a little. Isolated groups are more vulnerable, so you might invite "outsiders" with alternative points of view to participate in your discussions. Because groupthink is more likely in groups in which leaders are directive, you might wait until everyone else has spoken or made suggestions before you as leader make your viewpoint known. Groups operating under high stress (caused by perceptions of outside threat or strict deadlines) can be vulnerable to groupthink; encourage members to take their time and to remember that there is no enemy in this situation. Finally, it is important for you as a leader to standardize methods for considering alternative points of view; you might appoint a series of "devil's advocates" for each issue, and divide the group into subgroups who separately consider the issue and then bring their subgroup findings back to the larger group for consideration.