History doesn’t repeat itself, but human thinking does. Again and again, we watch brilliant minds walk in lockstep off a cliff, convinced by the illusion of consensus. The term for this recurring psychological malfunction is groupthink—a form of collective myopia where harmony trumps reason, dissent dies in the corner, and the consequences become tomorrow’s tragedies.
The phrase was coined in the 1970s by psychologist Irving Janis, but the phenomenon is older than empire. Groupthink isn’t about stupidity. It’s about conformity in clever rooms. It’s about intelligence that caves under the weight of cohesion, hierarchy, and fear. At its core, groupthink isn’t a flaw in judgment; it’s a failure of courage.
Take the Bay of Pigs invasion. A room full of Ivy League intellects, military strategists, and political insiders signed off on a plan that, in retrospect, read like satire. Why? Because speaking up felt harder than going along. Critics were muted, risks downplayed, and catastrophe baked into the script. Kennedy would later admit the fiasco was less about flawed intelligence and more about flawed dynamics. Smart people, afraid of being the dissenting voice, collectively manufactured stupidity.
Or consider NASA and the Challenger disaster. Engineers raised red flags about O-rings, but their warnings evaporated into the bureaucratic void. Launch pressure, political optics, and a culture allergic to delay overwhelmed the scientific evidence.
When the shuttle exploded just 73 seconds after liftoff, it wasn’t only a technological failure. It was a refusal to hear the people who saw it coming.
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More disturbing still is the case of Nazi Germany, where conformity wasn’t incidental—it was manufactured. Dissent didn’t disappear on its own; it was systematically extinguished. Propaganda, intimidation, and collective shame created a national trance, in which silence felt safer than doubt. Bureaucrats, neighbours, intellectuals—many didn’t believe, but complied. They told themselves they had no choice, until belief became irrelevant.
Then there’s 2008. The financial crash wasn’t just about subprime mortgages and toxic assets; it was about a global elite convincing itself that risk had been conquered. Regulators, lenders, and investors repeated the same mantras, ignored mounting evidence, and reassured one another with false confidence. "Everyone else is doing it" became a business model—until the illusion collapsed.
These aren’t isolated tragedies. They’re symptoms of a deep-rooted pattern. The human brain is wired for belonging. We mimic. We defer. We seek approval. In small doses, it’s survival. In decision rooms, it’s sabotage.
Groupthink flourishes in hierarchies. When the cost of disagreement is isolation, people will contort their principles into silence. In corporations, it manifests as boardroom nodding. In governments, as loyalist echo chambers. In social media, as algorithmic consensus masquerading as truth. Everywhere, the message is the same: don’t question the current.
Even now, in supposedly open societies, groupthink finds new vessels. Just scroll through Twitter. The performance of agreement is often valued more than the substance of thought. Dissent is not argued with—it’s unfollowed, reported, or ridiculed. In public discourse, as in history, groupthink punishes nuance and rewards certainty. Especially the wrong kind.
But the answer isn’t to glorify contrarianism. It’s to build systems that value tension over comfort. The best decisions emerge not from homogeneity, but from structured disagreement—spaces where questioning isn’t a liability, but a duty.
Leadership matters. So does design. Anonymous feedback, rotating devil’s advocates, and institutional norms that reward dissent can all help. But what matters most is cultural: whether we are willing to be disturbed. Because the warning signs of groupthink are never hard to spot. The moment everyone starts sounding the same, someone should start worrying.
The irony is that groupthink thrives on good intentions. On the desire to get along. To be efficient. To be a team player. But history is littered with the consequences of that comfort. And if we’re not careful, so will the future be.
Further reading
Victims of Groupthink: A Psychological Study of Foreign-Policy Decisions and Fiascoes by Irving L. Janis.
A seminal work on groupthink, this book analyzes historical policy failures, such as the Bay of Pigs invasion, to illustrate the dangers of flawed group decision-making.
Groupthink: Psychological Studies of Policy Decisions and Fiascoes by Irving L. Janis.
An updated exploration of the groupthink phenomenon, providing insights into why intelligent groups make disastrous decisions and how to prevent them.
Wiser: Getting Beyond Groupthink to Make Groups Smarter by Cass R. Sunstein and Reid Hastie.
This book explores how to improve group decision-making and avoid cognitive biases that lead to poor outcomes.
The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil by Philip Zimbardo.
While not solely about groupthink, Zimbardo’s analysis of the Stanford Prison Experiment delves into conformity, obedience, and the psychology of group behavior.
The Wisdom of Crowds by James Surowiecki.
A counterpoint to groupthink theory, this book argues that under the right conditions, collective decision-making can be more effective than individual expertise.
Rethinking Groupthink: The Role of Leadership in Enhancing Decision Making by Paul ‘t Hart.
This book examines how leadership styles influence group decision-making, offering strategies to counteract groupthink.
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