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How Do You Destroy the Deadly Dangers of “Groupthink”?

The leadership lesson I learned on my journey to Pluto

So there I was: reading about “New Horizons,” the plucky spacecraft and its 2015 flyby of Pluto. (Humor me: I came of age in the 60s – the height of the Space Race with the U.S.S.R., Apollo, and moon landings.) With only about twenty-five pages to go in the book, I’d figuratively traveled on board the New Horizon spacecraft for three billion miles over nine years. Now I was screaming toward my rendezvous with Pluto at 35,000 miles an hour.

New Horizons is an interplanetary space probe that was launched as a part of NASA’s New Frontiers program.

A nine-minute window

For the New Horizons’ mission to be successful, the spacecraft’s data-gathering instruments had to work flawlessly starting seven days before reaching its closest point to the planet and for at least two days after.

But preprogramming didn’t guarantee success either. New Horizons, traveling at 35,000 miles an hour, had to reach a specific point in space within a nine-minute window.

The maneuvering of the seven data-gathering instruments – what they would look at, what they would measure – had to be preprogrammed into the craft’s computer. There was no astronaut aboard to point the instruments here and there. And there was no way that someone back at Mission Control could drive it in real-time. By 2015 New Horizons was three billion miles away from Earth. A signal traveling at the speed of light would take 4.5 hours to reach the speeding spacecraft. In that amount of time, what Mission Control had been directing the spacecraft to photograph or measure would have likely passed. But preprogramming didn’t guarantee success either. New Horizons, traveling at 35,000 miles an hour, had to reach a specific point in space within a nine-minute window. If the craft were early or late to that point, the computer would be directing the instruments to look at or measure something during the critical flyby period that wasn’t centered in their field of view – or not there at all. And there would be no time to recalibrate them. The potential to collect data would be lost.

The mission would have failed. A grace period of only 540 seconds. After three billion miles. And nine years.

The good news is that Mission Control scientists were monitoring the spacecraft as it approached the point and calculated that it was less than two minutes off – way inside the nine-minute-long safety window.

Everyone in Mission Control breathed a sigh of relief.

But what if we…?

Scientists and engineers are, by trade, perfectionists, so they started asking “Do we make a navigation correction? Do we scratch back a few more important seconds to make sure our instruments are pointing where we want them to point?” Days before the critical flyby, there was still time to do so.

It was a tempting proposition.

Dr. Alan Stern, the mission leader, gathered everyone on his team together to review the potential of sending correction code to New Horizons. And then he took three powerful steps:

  1. Stern asked each of his team members to voice their opinion on the wisdom of making the correction. One by one, around the table, each leader of a critical aspect of the mission voiced “Go,” recommending the correction.
  2. Stern waited and took notes until everyone had the opportunity to voice his or her opinion. He then made the decision: “No go.”
  3. He then asked a critical question, “Is there a must-do reason to make the correction when we’re already safely within the box?”He went back around the room and asked each section leader to respond.

Leadership lessons

After hearing from everyone, Stern stood with his original “No go.” The slight gains they would realize from the correction were not worth the risk of introducing a potential programming error this late in the game.

With apologies to Jim Collins, “great” is not always better. Sometimes “good enough” will do.

It was here that my mind drifted from the page. I started to wonder about the meeting Stern called and how he conducted it. I started to relate it to leadership in general.

  • Do leaders typically ask to hear from all members of their team on critical questions, or because they’re the leader – “All eyes are on me.” – feel they need to make the immediate call?
  • Do leaders typically speak last, or because they’re the leader – “All eyes are on me.”– feel they need to speak first?
  • Do leaders typically push for “better” – “All eyes are on me.”– when there is evidence that “good enough” is good enough?

When Stern returned to his office, he was already receiving emails from the meeting participants expressing relief that he hadn’t caved to “group think.”

Dr. Melissa Hughes, author of the neuroscience-for-the-rest-of-us-primer, Happy Hour with Einstein, reinforces Stern’s steps as a meaningful way to avoid “groupthink” – “a psychological phenomenon that happens when people in a group willingly or unconsciously commit to decisions they don’t necessarily agree with to avoid creating emotional tension or conflict with their colleagues.” In Stern’s case, no one on his team wanted to be the only “No go” and buck the “group think.”

The consequences of groupthink, as Dr. Hughes describes them, can be significant:

When people…put harmony and cohesion above the critical evaluation and analysis of the outcome, they stifle their thoughts, refrain from asking the hard questions and avoid exposing potential pitfalls. This often leads to irrational or problematic decisions.

In New Horizons’ case, the consequences could have been disastrous.

As I returned to the last pages of the book, my mind was once again with New Horizons. I was now flying past Pluto at 35,000 miles an hour, a mere 7500 miles above its surface. As the spacecraft began to “phone home” its amazing images and other data, it was clear that New Horizons – the first mission to Pluto – was an unqualified success.

“Good enough” was truly good enough.

Jeff Ikler
Jeff Iklerhttps://www.queticocoaching.com/
The river that runs through my career lives – as teacher, publisher, coach, podcaster and author – is helping individuals acquire knowledge, skills, and self-awareness so they can better achieve their desired results and impact. • As Director of Quetico Leadership and Career Coaching, I work with individuals and leaders to overcome obstacles and make sustained changes in their behavior. • I co-host the podcast “Getting Unstuck – Shift for Impact,” where I bring to light inspirational stories of transformation in the field of education. • I am the co-author of the soon-to-be-published book for school educators, Shifting: How Educational Leaders Can Create a Culture of Change.

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9 CONVERSATIONS

  1. Fascinating points Jeff. I believe there is a time and a place for everything, including a little group-think. Let me explain… In the case of the Pluto mission, I believe that after millions, if not billions, of dollars were invested in the science and technology of planet discovery, a little group-think from credible geniuses would be apropos. Let’s face it, these are the world’s top scientific minds… engineers, mathematicians, experienced, professional eggheads. However, the boundaries of group-think become a little more flaky when placed in an academic institution… transitional education systems where young students come and go with the tide. Here we are not dealing with experienced physicists, we are dealing more with bias educators who have an agenda, often political in nature. The relationship between bias educator and the developing mind is where the dangerous seeds of corruption are first planted. It is here where group-think becomes contaminated and dangerous. I don’t necessarily believe group-think is bad thing if used in the right context. However, when the end result forces other groups to accept or do things that are against their will, it is no longer group-think, it is imperialism. That alone is wrong and there is no way to regulate this phenomenon. Just an opinion, doesn’t mean I’m right…

    • Aaron — Thanks for joining in the conversation. As I was reading your response, it dawned on me that “group think” can occur between two people just as well as it does in a larger group. For example, I could (a) openly acknowledge your point of view simply to get along (b) take a very neutral stance or (c) push back.

      I am going to chose (b) for the moment because I need to think about this: “I don’t necessarily believe group-think is bad thing if used in the right context.”

      It all depends on what you mean by “right.”

      In one case the context would have to be of low impact, or low consequence, meaning there’s nothing major to be lost by going along. Merely “going along” keeps the lid on things. No feathers ruffled. Whatever “it” is, is not worth arm-wrestling over.

      On the other hand, the “right” context could have large impact, or large consequence. Going along so as not to embarrass the leader in a large meeting might be the prudent thing to do until you can approach the leader in private.

      I think I just gravitated toward (a). Thanks for making me think!

  2. How to avoid groupthink? It’s easy to say that it all boils down to the courage of your convictions. Yet those convictions need a basis of sound moral values as well as a dynamic of critical thinking (both to ask questions and answer them) to rein in subservience, apathy or paradoxically ego. Also to realise that what is not broken does not need fixing.

  3. Jeff, your sharing on the three questions that Dr. Stern asked the team members I feel are valuable and so necessary to really flesh out individual perspectives outside of the “group think”. I really took a great deal from your writing today and so thank you for this gift.

  4. Great blog post, Jeff, and it resonates a lot to me and with my work.

    Your three points about leadership in general, were for me, spot on. My thoughts are to do with the leader creating a safe place for individuals to share their thinking without fear of ridicule, bullying, etc., and that all of their views are valid and need to be heard.

    The other relates to listening. Creating a space where we listen actively to each person’s thinking, we do so without interruption, without judgement and by giving them our full attention. We don’t need to be thinking of our response, because our turn will come…when we hope we will be treated in the same way by the others.

    Finally, whilst the leader is best to speak last, it is done on the basis that their minds could be changed by the thinking of the group.

    Colin

    • Colin –Great summary of the critical points. Thanks for putting them on paper. As a coach, I’m naturally a big fan of #2, active listening.

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