Truth 32. Two heads can be worse than one
How did the U.S. get into the war in Iraq? The best minds of the nation were focused on this topic for weeks. Top leaders made pitches. Journalists wrote stories. Hundreds of members of the U.S. Senate and Congress should have served as a check, but they waved it on. Since the problem was framed as a battle between freedom and terrorism, who wanted to be on the wrong side? Our allies around the world, with a few notable exceptions, either got in line with the "coalition of the willing" or diplomatically kept quiet. Those countries who didn't participate, such as France, were left holding their "freedom fries."
The decision of the United States to invade Iraq was originally justified based on the belief that there were "weapons of mass destruction" in Iraq. This conclusion was reached based on intelligence that had come in from different sources, but the evidence soon evaporated. The weapons were never found.
Even the news media, the fourth estate that should be a watchdog on policymakers, failed to ask the probing questions (as recognized when The New York Times actually made a public apology). This was a case where some careful probing might have revealed a very different picture. The kindest view was that this was a reflection of the difficulty of making sense from the foggy information that emerges from intelligence sources. The less favorable view was that the story was designed as a rationale for a foregone conclusion that the invasion was the right thing to do.
Weak information was strengthened. Weak arguments were glossed over. And we woke up several years later with a collective hangover and a serious problem next to us in the bed—and with no easy way out. This is groupthink at its worst.18 Many people looked at the same problem, and they still made a decision that increasingly looks like a disastrous one. The Challenger space shuttle disaster is attributed to a similar desire to proceed that ran roughshod over the voices or potential voices of dissent. The desire for harmony and unanimity can overcome the careful thinking and conflict that could raise important questions and challenge the decision.
When making group decisions, examine the interactions of the group. Do they allow different voices to be heard independently? Do they allow the best ideas to percolate to the surface, or does one powerful voice dominate? If you have a leader in the room who is in a position of extreme power and influence, consider ways to get the leader out of the discussion. This could be by removing the leader from the room or by making a conscious effort not to dominate the discussion. You cannot underestimate the power of the leader. I remember a CEO who once reported that after he switched to wearing suspenders, he noticed that many other executives followed suit. If you're in a situation where everyone agrees on a decision, especially after little discussion or debate, you should get in the habit of asking, "What's wrong?" What questions are unasked, and how do you bring the revolutionaries into the room who will have the courage to ask them?