The Power of Others notes

How to Survive a Crowd Emergency:

1. Remember that your natural response to an emergency is likely to be shock and bewilderment and that this can cause you to freeze. Do your best to override this: engage your brain and look for a way out.
2. Co-operate with those around you, don’t compete with them. Altruistic behavior is very common during disasters and will increase your chances of survival.
3. Rehearse an exit strategy in your head beforehand. You should do this whenever you enter an unfamiliar place or situation. You’ll be less likely to dawdle when something goes wrong if you’ve mentally gone through the motions.

How to Avoid Groupthink in Your Organization:

1. An illusion of invulnerability, shared by most or all members, which creates excessive optimism and encourages taking extreme risks.
2. An unquestioned belief in the group's inherent morality.
3. A collective effort to discount warnings or any information that might force members to reconsider their assumptions.
4. Stereotyped views of enemy leaders as too evil to warrant genuine attempts to negotiate.
5. An inclination among members to self-censor any doubts they have about the apparent group consensus.
6. A shared illusion of unanimity over judgments that conform to the majority view, either due to self-censorship over a false assumption that silence means consent.
7. Direct pressure on any member who expresses strong arguments against any of the group's commitments.
8. The emergence of self-appointed 'mind-guards' who take it upon themselves to protect the group from adverse information.

Source: The Power of Others: Peer Pressure, Groupthink, and How the People Around Us Shape Everything We Do (2015) by Michael Bond.

Organizations can be political too. And groupthink can affect them as well. For instance, thinking that socialism more moral (or even perfect) than the free-market system. Or not believing any data that contradicts man-made global warming. Scientific community once thought the sun revolved around the earth. That was a kind of groupthink. Science is not up to a vote. Not negotiating with republican House or Senate leaders because you think they are racist, bigots, etc. Even direct pressure against any member who doesn’t follow in line with all the progressive policies like thinking President Trump is guilty of colluding. Or being a proponent of Israel. Ask Joe Lieberman what I am talking about. Or Alan Dershowitz.