“Groupthink and complacency feed on each other, and often prevent organizations learning except in a crisis,” contends Nicholas Gruen, an economist and chief executive officer of Lateral Economics. While many governments have come to accept and understand dissent, companies around the globe still struggle with this, according to an article in The Sydney Morning Herald.
For example, as Australia’s banking industry continues to face problems, there has been a lack of discourse around speaking out against current business practices. As such, not much has been done to reform a clearly broken system, writes Gruen.
Gruen believes employees should feel comfortable stating disagreement with company decisions, but should also be willing to follow the will of the group should they be outnumbered. Without dissent, however, organizations cannot expect to flourish as groupthink will undoubtedly take over.
This article was featured in the January 12, 2011 issue of Diversity Best Practices’ email newsletter, Diversity in the News. To read additional stories from that issue, see the related content section below. To subscribe to Diversity in the News, register on the newsletter page of this website.
