How is it that good teams with highly educated members and many years of experience make poor decisions again and again? The main reason is that the members don’t want to step outside the group and speak their honest mind. That’s why it’s absolutely vital that you, as a manager or a member, know how to facilitate a constructive conflict. When you do, the odds are high that you’ll make the right decisions. You’ve probably been in a situation like this:
It’s a Sunday afternoon, and Oliver is visiting his in-laws with his wife. After a while his father-in-law suggests: “Shall we drive out to the white cliffs?” “Good idea!” says his mother-in-law. Oliver looks at the clock and the grey sky. It’s a 90-minute drive, but he doesn’t want to step outside the group, so he says: “Sounds fine to me. I just hope your daughter wants to come too.” Oliver’s wife answers straight away: “Of course I do. I can’t remember the last time I was out at the cliffs.”
The drive is long and dull. The food in the nearby cafeteria is just as dull. It’s started to rain. A walk that should have lasted five minutes is stretched to 20, now that they’ve driven so far. Soaked through, they get into the car and drive home. Oliver’s wife and his mother-in-law quickly fall asleep in the back seat, and not much is said up front.
When they finally get home, one of them says, not quite honestly: “That was a lovely trip — wasn’t it?” The mother-in-law says she would actually rather have stayed home, but came along because the other three were so keen on the idea. Oliver takes his chance too: “It wasn’t a hit for me either. I only came along to make the rest of you happy.” At that, his wife looks at him in surprise: “I only came along to make you happy. Otherwise I’d never have gone out to the cliffs in the rain.” The father-in-law looks at the floor and admits he only suggested it because he thought the others would be bored otherwise.
With muddy shoes, damp clothes and hungry stomachs, they all look at each other in amazement. Why did they make a decision nobody wanted? Everyone would rather have relaxed, but nobody said anything.
We all know the situation, and when it happens in family life, it raises a smile. The trouble is just that poor decisions in working life cost jobs (L. Perlow, 2003), and poor decisions among politicians drive countries into recession and cost human lives (D. Badie, 2010).
Irving Janis was a professor at Yale University in the USA, and spent most of his life studying why some teams tried to minimise conflict and reach agreement without sufficiently analysing, testing and evaluating their ideas (M. Turner 1998). He coined the term groupthink, which arises when we believe that agreement in the team is more important than making sound decisions. It typically arises in teams with a high degree of togetherness.
Groupthink arises when we believe that agreement in the team is more important than making sound decisions.
As a team, we can’t safeguard against groupthink by being highly enough educated or by having long enough seniority. Events such as the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1941, the space shuttle Challenger exploding in 1986, or Swissair going bankrupt in 2002, are classic examples of skilled teams that were under pressure and no longer looked objectively at their data. The members oversimplified their challenge and did everything to avoid individual thinking and creative ideas.
At Pearl Harbor, people were convinced that the US navy was enough of a deterrent for the Japanese not to attack (I. Janis, 1972). With the space shuttle Challenger, NASA pressured a subcontractor into declaring everything ready, even though the subcontractor had earlier advised against the launch (G. Moorhead, 1991). At Swissair, management believed the company could grow its way out of the crisis. Instead of cooperating with other airlines, management doubled the number of employees, and the company went bankrupt (H. Krapf, 2002).
Whether you’re a politician at a G8 summit or a caseworker in a small local authority, the principles are the same when the door to the meeting room closes and you have to make a decision. It’s absolutely vital that you have conflict and keep your focus on the ball — rather than the player. The opposite of conflict isn’t harmony, but indifference and a lack of engagement. And when the team tries to reach agreement, it often masks a fear that there might, beneath the surface, be a conflict the team is trying to avoid.
Whether you’re a politician at a G8 summit or a caseworker in a small local authority, the principles are the same when the door to the meeting room closes and you have to make a decision.
If you’re good at handling conflict in the team, you’re also better able to make good decisions. That’s because you reach a greater understanding of what you’re discussing. You’ll pull more information into the debate, and your decision process will be faster when you discuss with real engagement and your guard down (M. Deutsch, 2006):
Constructive conflict, decision speed and performance go hand in hand
For teams where time is the most important factor, you can use the old military analogy that says a fast wrong decision is better than a slow right one. When we hold back from diving below the surface, it’s usually because, as social beings, we want to be part of the group.
Swap glasses
It’s absolutely vital that your team is able to have conflict together. So it’s important that you swap glasses every now and then, so you don’t suddenly think: “Why did we make that decision? Here are a few different pairs of glasses you can swap around (A. Furnham, 1993):
- The Plant: Gifted, creative and full of ideas. Sees difficult problems from new angles.
- The Resource Investigator: Outgoing, enthusiastic, curious and communicative. Explores opportunities. Builds contacts.
- The Co-ordinator: Mature, confident and trusting. Can prioritise. Clarifies goals and brings about decisions. Has an eye for other people’s talents.
- The Shaper: Dynamic, high-geared and restless. Challenges and creates pressure, finds ways around obstacles.
- The Monitor Evaluator: Analytical, sober and objective. Precise judgement. Sees all the rational aspects of a matter.
- The Teamworker: Socially oriented, outgoing and sharply observant. Sensitive, diplomatic and flexible. A good listener. Avoids friction and creates a good climate.
- The Implementer: Disciplined, reliable and loyal. Effective in the delivery phases. Realistic and practical.
- The Completer Finisher: Careful and conscientious. Looks for errors and oversights. Perfectionist, persistent and precise.
- The Specialist: Contributes specialist knowledge and technical skills. Strong professional commitment and self-belief. Highly focused on their own goals and tasks.
It is, of course, naturally important for us as social beings to be part of the group. But if we don’t swap glasses and play devil’s advocate, the visionary and the action-oriented one, we can quickly end up looking at each other in amazement and asking: “Why did we make that decision? Nobody wanted it.”
My experience with facilitating conflict in teams is that the fear stems from a lack of trust that the team will be able to come back up to the surface together once it dives. On the other hand, I see again and again that when teams are guided and grow comfortable with conflict, they gain a very special energy. When they discover that they’re far stronger than they previously thought, and can step out of the comfort zone to make some of the hard decisions, the team’s confidence rises sharply. It’s a fantastic thing to see.
Sources and more inspiration
Is Silence Killing Your Company?
L. Perlow, 2003, Harvard Business School
Groupthink, Iraq, and the War on Terror
D. Badie, 2010, Foreign Policy Analysis
Twenty-Five Years of Groupthink Theory and Research
M. Turner & A. Pratkanis, 1998, Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes
Victims of Groupthink
I. Janis, 1972, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Groupthink: Definition & Examples
NASA, 1986
Group Decision Fiascoes Continue
G. Moorhead, R. Ference & C. Neck, 1991, Human Relations
The Grounding
H. Krapf, 2002, IMD
The Handbook of Conflict Resolution: Theory and Practice
M. Deutsch, P. Coleman & E. Marcus, 2006, Jossey-Bass
Get Your Team to Stop Fighting and Start Working
A. Gallo, 2010, Harvard Business Publishing
A Psychometric Assessment of the Belbin Team-Role Self-Perception Inventory
A. Furnham, H. Steele & D. Pendleton, 1993, Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology
