Groups play a larger role than ever in the workplace. Most significant projects—creating a video game or film, building an apartment complex, opening a new market, raising money for a nonprofit—require the efforts of teams of people. Self-directed work groups are now charged with everything from organizing the assembly line to hiring and firing. Teams, not individuals, generally make important organizational decisions.

Groups tend to bring out the moral best and worst in us. If you’re like me, some of your proudest moments are associated with small groups. Your team may have completed a service project for your local community or determined how to fairly distribute student fees to campus organizations. (See Case Study 7.1 for an example of outstanding group moral performance.) At the same time, some of your most regrettable moments (like mine) may also relate to group experiences. Your team may have made poor moral choices and convinced you to engage in unethical activities.

Case Study 7.1

The HealthCare.gov Rescue Squad

The rollout of the Affordable Care Act (known to most U.S. citizens as Obamacare) was scheduled for fall 2013. Millions of Americans would be eligible for low-cost medical insurance under the new system. To sign up for coverage, they had to log on to state websites or on to the national website HealthCare.gov. However, the HealthCare.gov site crashed on October 1, the day it opened. Only three out of 10 enrollees were able to log on, and of the 30 percent who got on the site, most were bounced off due to technical glitches.

The technology failure put Obamacare at risk, as members of the press and opponents of the Affordable Care Act were quick to point out. President Obama thought of scrapping the site and starting over. But before he did, he assigned two high-level staffers to find “fresh eyes who could decide whether the thing was salvageable.” They called on Mikey Dickerson, a Google site-reliability engineer who had worked on the 2012 Obama campaign to lead a “rescue squad” of technology specialists. Other team members included chief technology officers, engineers, the former deputy technology director of the Democratic Party, a past Presidential Innovation Fellow, and a former Google product manager. Team members assured the White House staffers that the site could be salvaged. Said Dickerson: “It’s just a website. We’re not going to the moon.”

The rescue squad’s leader instituted a “stand up culture.” In this culture participants stand rather than sit when they meet. They gather first in the morning and then report back at a second stand up at the end of the day. The rescue squad met throughout October and November at 10 am and at 6 pm, seven days a week, focusing on solving problems that had to be dealt with over the next 24–48 hours. Dickerson insisted that group focus stay on resolving issues, not on assigning blame. He was so committed to forgoing blame that he called for a round of applause for an engineer who admitted that his mistake had caused a system outage. Sacrifice was also part of the group’s ethic. Team members sometimes slept for 5–10 hours total over a period of 4–5 days. On occasion they only changed clothes when they bought them at a nearby mall. One member lived 20 miles away but didn’t see his family for weeks because the commute had become “an impossible luxury” due to the team’s heavy workload.

By November 30 (the date when the site was to be trouble free), the system could handle at least 50,000 enrollees at one time. To reach that goal, the team fixed 400 bugs, drastically reduced error rates, and dealt with system outages. December 23, the final enrollment date for those who wanted coverage effective January 1, 2014, was the next milestone. On that day the site processed 129,000 enrollees. (The team celebrated with a hug.) By mid-February 2014 HealthCare.gov had processed 1.9 million applicants.

Members of the rescue squad gave up their regular, high-paying jobs to join the team, kept a nearly impossible schedule, and stayed as long as the task took. In so doing, they helped dispel “the myth that everyone in Silicon Valley is a selfish narcissist.” Team members gave Time reporter Steven Brill the same message: “This was the toughest but most rewarding project of their lives.” According to one, “I believe in getting people health care. I am so proud of this.” Said another, “We really didn’t need to be pumped up much. This is what we do. And this job had special meaning.”

Discussion Probes

1. Why was the rescue squad so successful? How much did the mission of the rescue squad and the values of its members contribute to its success?

2. Have you ever been on a team that performed at a high level? What similarities do you note between your experience and that of the rescue team?

3. What steps did team leader Dickerson take to encourage collaboration and high performance?

4. Would a “stand up culture” work in any of the groups you belong to?

5. How can team leaders and members keep the focus on solving problems, not on assigning blame?

Sources: All quotations come from Brill (2014). Additional sources for this section are Bump (2014) and Hughes (2013).

Transforming our teams so that they spur us to higher, not lower, moral performance is the goal of this chapter. Achieving that end requires that we act as morally responsible group members and help our teams steer clear of ethical dangers.

Acting as a Morally Responsible Team Member

Group membership does not excuse us from our individual ethical responsibilities. Quite the contrary; in small groups, our behaviors can have a significant impact on the team’s ethical success or failure.1 We have a duty to apply the concepts and skills discussed in earlier chapters—ethical theories, character, moral reasoning, and ethical communication competencies—to the team setting. In addition, we need to adopt a cooperative orientation, do our fair share of the work, be open and supportive, and offer dissent.

Adopting a Cooperative Orientation

In Chapter 4, we noted that the outcome of interpersonal communication is dependent on the attitude we bring to our conversations. The same is true for our group interactions. Groups committed to cooperation can accomplish great things, as Case Study 7.1 demonstrates. Conversely, if we lack this commitment to working together, our performance, as well as that of the team as a whole, is likely to suffer.

A cooperative orientation is based on the realization that an individual’s success is dependent on the success of other team members.2 To reach shared goals, everyone must do her or his part. This perspective stands in sharp contrast to individualistic and competitive points of view. Individualistic members rely on their own efforts to achieve their private agendas. For example, an individualist assigned to a class project group puts personal goals (developing a romantic relationship with someone else on the team, earning an A in another class) ahead of the collective goal of producing an excellent presentation. Competitive group members achieve their objectives at the expense of others. They want to earn the highest grade in the class, for instance, or get promoted ahead of other employees. In order to succeed, they may withhold information or claim too much credit for the group’s success.

Individualism and competition are celebrated in Western culture but are counterproductive in small groups. In an analysis of the results of over 100 studies, brothers David and Roger Johnson and their colleagues found that in the vast majority of cases, cooperative groups had higher levels of achievement and productivity.3 No matter what the subject matter (math, psychology, physical education), task (problem solving, retention and memory, categorization), and age group (elementary school through adult), cooperative groups are more successful. That’s because cooperative team members are more likely to do these things:4

· Help one another

· Put forth more effort and invest more time in completing the task

· Support (reinforce) the identities of other group members

· Be open to influence from others

· Detect and correct errors in reasoning

· Generate more new ideas, strategies, and solutions

· Think clearly because they feel relaxed

· Engage in healthy conflict that refines solutions

· Develop positive relationships with other group members

· Understand the perspectives of other team members

· Share accurate messages and accurately interpret messages from others

· Provide positive feedback to other members, which builds self-esteem

· Value and accept differences

· Demonstrate a positive attitude toward the task

· Act in trustworthy ways

· Enjoy better psychological health

· Share resources

In light of this evidence, we have an ethical duty to behave in a cooperative manner while encouraging others to do the same. We need to ask ourselves if we are committed to the success of the group and can put aside our desire to pursue personal agendas and to best others. If we can’t answer in the affirmative, a change in attitude or withdrawal from the group is in order. We can foster cooperation through such communication behaviors as proposing compromises or concessions, carrying through on promises, pointing out the need to cooperate, asking for help, and accurately paraphrasing others’ points of view.5 The group as a whole needs to make sure that the team pursues a joint product, which fosters interdependence, and not a series of individual products, which encourages individualistic or competitive behavior. Collectively, members should divide the work fairly, hold individuals responsible for their assignments, reward the team as whole (not individual members), involve everyone in decision making, engage in constructive conflict (see Chapter 4), and emphasize shared values, like a commitment to service or quality.

Fostering cooperation is key to project management. Project managers direct teams that build bridges, develop new products, manage software installations, and carry out other major initiatives. We can adopt the strategies they use to encourage collaboration in our class project teams and other groups. Successful project managers engage in collaborative decision making, helping team members define their goals, logistics, schedules, subtasks, and deliverables as the group launches. They require documentation of individual and collective work through traditional (memos, project logs, reports) and electronic (blogs, online discussion) means. Such documentation keeps members informed about the activities of others and can help the team work together more effectively. Project leaders also encourage ongoing assessment and reflection. This allows members to adjust roles and assignments as needed to better coordinate their efforts.6

Ethics in Action 7.1 Intergroup Cooperation

Cooperation between groups can be as important as cooperation within groups. The success of any organization depends in large part on the coordinated efforts of teams and units. Product designers, production staff, shippers, and marketers must work together to roll out a new athletic shoe; nurses, doctors, pharmacists, housekeeping staff, and dieticians coordinate their efforts to meet the needs of hospital patients; employees of newly merged companies have to integrate their products, production facilities, offices, and payroll.

Promoting intergroup cooperation—collaboration between organizational subgroups—can be challenging. Often the units being asked to work together have been competing with one another for organizational resources like money, staff, and facilities. They may differ in status as well, as in the case of a business acquisition. Employees of the newly acquired firm have less power and may feel alienated as the dominant group tries to impose its values and culture on them. Group identities are the most significant barrier to intergroup coordination, however. Most of us define ourselves according to our group memberships, referring to ourselves as business students, engineers, salespeople, or lawyers. These group identities favor the in-group over the out-group. In addition, we prefer leaders who put the interests of our group over those of outside groups.

If you are called upon to lead more than one team, you can promote intergroup collaboration by doing the following:

1. Encouraging interaction between units. Provide opportunities for members of different teams to interact informally through meals, social activities, and shared hobbies. Emphasize the need to achieve a shared goal like rolling out a new product or overseeing a change initiative. Promote universal values like equality and respect for others.

2. Creating an intergroup relational identity. Encourage members to develop a dual identity, where they see themselves as members of the larger organization as well as members of their subgroups. Create dual identities by developing a shared vision and by emphasizing the importance of coordination. Remind units that collaboration helps each subgroup maintain its own unique goals and values.

3. Boundary spanning. Bridge or span groups by having frequent contact with members of every team. Develop quality relationships with individuals from all groups and be careful not to favor one unit over the other. Embody intergroup relational identity by leading both groups. Act as a role model for cooperation.

SOURCE: Hackman, M. Z., and Johnson, C. E. (2013). Leadership: A communication perspective (6th ed.). Prospect Heights, IL: Waveland Press. Additional sources for this section include Duck and Fielding (2003); Ernst and Yip (2009); Hogg, Van Knippenberg, and Rast (2012); Pittinsky (2010).

Doing Your Fair Share (Not Loafing)

Many attempts to create a cooperative climate falter because participants fail to do their fair share of the work. Scholars use the term social loafing to describe the tendency of individuals to reduce their efforts when working in a group. Interest in this phenomenon can be traced back to the 1880s. In one of the first experimental studies in social psychology, a researcher asked male volunteers to pull on a rope.7 He discovered that as the size of the group increased, each man exerted less force. Modern investigators have determined that social loafing is common on all kinds of teams, though individuals differ in their tendency to slack off. Women and people from Eastern cultures are less likely to reduce their efforts, for example. Those who enjoy thinking maintain their efforts when engaged in intellectually demanding group activities. Conscientious individuals and those motivated by a high need for achievement continue to work as hard in a group as they do on their own.8 (Complete Self-Assessment 7.1 to determine how much social loafing goes on in your group and to determine what impact this behavior had on your team.)

Social psychologists Steven Karau and Kipling Williams developed the collective effort model (CEM) to identify the causes of social loafing.9 They theorize that the motivation of group members depends on three factors: (1) expectancy: how much an individual expects that his or her effort will lead to high group performance; (2) instrumentality: the strength of the perceived relationship between personal and group effort and group achievement; and (3) valence: how desirable the outcome is for individual group members. (Ethics in Action 7.2 describes how these factors also operate in the online environment.)

Motivation drops when any of these factors is low. Individuals are more likely to slack off in collectives because the group can still succeed even if they do less (low expectancy). Participants may also believe that the group won’t succeed (win a majority of its games, secure a contract), no matter how hard they and their fellow group members try (low instrumentality). Or participants may not value the group’s goal or outcome (low valence). Karau, Williams, and other investigators treat social loafing as undesirable, unethical behavior that undermines cooperation, encourages others to slack off for fear of being seen as “suckers,” and diminishes the productivity of the group as a whole. They’ve identified ways to reduce or eliminate this phenomenon through the strategies outlined below. Each set of tactics is designed to address one of the three elements of motivation.10

Strategies for Increasing Expectancy

Take these steps to reinforce the tie between individual efforts and successful group performance:

· Select members carefully and match them to tasks.

· Provide training in needed skills.

· Set challenging yet realistic goals.

· Supply needed resources and support.

· Build feelings of self-efficacy.

· Raise the visibility of individual tasks.

· Monitor individual efforts.

Self-Assessment 7.1

Class Project Social Loafing Scale

Instructions

To identify the behaviors associated with their impact on team performance, respond to the following questions based on your recent experiences with ONE social loafer in a class project team.

1. What Did the Social Loafer Do?

· 1 = Does NOT describe AT ALL

· 2 = Describes the LEAST

· 3 = Does not describe much

· 4 = Describes somewhat

· 5 = Describes the MOST

· Member had trouble attending team meetings

· Member had trouble paying attention to what was going on in the team

· Member was mostly silent during the team meetings

· Member engaged in side conversations a lot while the team was working

· Member came poorly prepared to the team meetings

· Member contributed poorly to the team discussions when present

· Member had trouble completing team-related homework

· Member mostly declined to take on any work for the team

· Member did a poor job of the work she or he was assigned

· Member did poor quality work

· Member mostly distracted from the team’s focus on its goals and objectives

· Member did not fully participate in the team’s formal presentation

2. What Was the Impact of the Social Loafer on Your Team?

· Indicate the extent to which you agree or disagree with the following statements about the IMPACT the social loafer had on your team (1 = strongly disagree; 2 = disagree; 3 = neither agree nor disagree; 4 = agree; 5 = strongly agree)

As a result of the SOCIAL LOAFING...

· The team took longer than anticipated to complete its tasks

· The team meetings lasted longer than expected

· The team had fewer good ideas than other teams

· Team members had to waste their time explaining things to the social loafer

· Other team members had to do more than their share of work

· Other team members were frustrated and angry

· There was a higher level of stress on the team

· Other team members had to redo or revise the work done by the social loafer

· The work had to be reassigned to other members of the team

· The team’s final presentation was not as high quality as that of other teams

· The team missed deadlines

SOURCE: Adapted from Jassawalla, A. R., Malshe, A., and Sashittal, H. (2008). Student perceptions of social loafing in undergraduate business classroom teams. Decision Sciences Journal of Innovative Education, 6, 423–424. Used by permission.

Strategies for Increasing Instrumentality

Use the following to link individual performance to group performance:

· Make sure tasks are not too demanding.

· Reduce the size of the group so that members don’t feel that their efforts are redundant.

· Point out that each member is making a unique, valuable contribution.

· Clarify how individual efforts relate to the team’s final product.

Link group performance and outcomes this way:

· Recognize group work.

· Evaluate team products.

· Create norms that emphasize high performance standards.

Outcomes

Use these methods to increase the positive value of the group’s collective product to members:

· Offer meaningful, interesting work that becomes intrinsically motivating.

· Provide tangible incentives like raises and bonuses.

· Encourage members to identify with the group.

· Strengthen the social bonds between members.

· Create norms that foster a sense of group pride and mutual obligation.

Ethics in Action 7.2 Social Loafing in Virtual Teams

Virtual teams are geographically scattered groups that collaborate primarily though technology. Such teams can draw upon the expertise of individuals from different locations around the world. They have low operating costs, since members don’t have to travel to a central location. Instead, they communicate through e-mail, videoconferencing, bulletin boards, and other electronic means. Large corporations—like Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Intel, NCR, and Microsoft—rely on virtual teams to carry out a variety of functions, including project engineering, customer service, consulting, and marketing.

Initial indications are that social loafing is more common in virtual teams than in face-to-face groups. Two factors apparently account for the prevalence of social loafing in technology-supported groups. One, virtual teams are often large. In bigger groups, members feel as though their contributions aren’t as important to the team’s success, and therefore they are less motivated to contribute. Also, it is harder to identify who contributes and who doesn’t. Two, members of virtual teams are widely dispersed. In face-to-face groups, members know instantly what others are doing, a fact that can encourage them to keep working. Feedback in virtual teams, on the other hand, can be delayed for hours or days. Virtual team members also have less contact with each other, which can reduce cohesion.

Researchers Omar Alnuaimi, Lionel Robert, and Likoebe Maruping tested the effects of team size and dispersion in an experiment using 32 groups of students. They assigned approximately half of the groups to work on a brainstorming task with their teammates in the same room, while members of the rest of the teams worked in separate locations and interacted online. Group size ranged from three to 10 members. The investigators recorded the number of ideas produced by each group and surveyed the attitudes of team members. Dispersed and larger teams generated fewer ideas. Members of these groups felt less responsible for the group’s final product and less connected to other members. At the same time, they were more likely to blame others for the fact that they were loafing. They saw themselves as victims who were justified in reducing their efforts.

Based on their findings, Alnuaimi and his colleagues urge managers to change how they structure and coordinate virtual teams. Keep teams as small as possible. Emphasize that each team member has responsibility for accomplishing the group’s task. Implement an evaluation system that identifies each individual’s contribution (or lack of contribution). Remind participants that they are dealing with other people, not computers. Use richer communication channels (like videoconferencing, for example) that are better at fostering personal connections.

Sources: Alnuaimi, Robert, and Maruping (2010); Blaskovich (2008); Bryant, Albring, and Murthy (2009); Chidambaram and Tung (2005); Zhang, Chen, and Latimer (2011).

Displaying Openness and Supportiveness

Ethical team members are both open and supportive.11 Openness refers to an individual’s willingness to surface issues and talk about problems while, at the same time, enabling others to do the same. Supportiveness denotes the desire to help others succeed. Supportive group members encourage and defend others, help teammates overcome obstacles, and put the goals of the group first. These two characteristics work together. Openness by itself could pave the way for brutal honesty, insults, and sarcasm, so ethical issues must be discussed in a supportive manner. Otherwise, participants feel threatened and divert their attention from understanding and problem solving to defending themselves. Poorer ethical choices result.

Psychologist Jack Gibb identified six pairs of behaviors that promote either a defensive or a supportive group climate.12 Our moral duty as group members is to engage in supportive communication that contributes to a positive emotional climate and accurate understanding. At the same time, we need to draw attention to the comments of others that spark defensive reactions.

Evaluation Versus Description

Evaluative messages are judgmental. They can be sent through statements (“What a jerk!”) or through such nonverbal cues as using a sarcastic tone of voice or rolling one’s eyes. Those being evaluated put up their guard. Insecure group members are likely to respond by assigning blame (“You messed up”), by making judgments of their own (“At least my proposal didn’t go over budget”), and by questioning the motives of the speaker. Descriptive messages, such as asking for information and reporting data and feelings, create a more positive environment.

Control Versus Problem Orientation

Controlling messages imply that the recipient is inadequate—uninformed, immature, stubborn, overly emotional—and needs to change. Control, like evaluation, can be communicated through both verbal (issuing orders, threats) and nonverbal (stares, threatening body posture) means. Problem-centered messages (“What will be your next step?”) reflect a willingness to collaborate in defining and solving problems. They demonstrate that the sender has no predetermined solution and give the receiver permission to set his or her own direction.

Strategy Versus Spontaneity

Strategic communicators are seen as manipulators who try to hide their true motivations. They appear to be playing games, withholding data, or developing special sources of information. Worse yet, strategic communicators engage in “false spontaneity” by using gimmicks to disguise their intentions. Some supervisors solicit the input of employees in order to appear open minded, for instance, when they have already made the decision. In contrast, behavior that is truly spontaneous (unplanned) and honest reduces defensiveness.

Neutrality Versus Empathy

Neutral messages, like “Don’t worry” and “Don’t take it personally,” communicate little warmth or caring. These low-affect messages may be meant as supportive, but listeners come away feeling disconfirmed. Empathetic statements, such as “I can see why you would be worried” and “No wonder you were offended by the boss’s comment,” communicate reassurance and acceptance.

Superiority Versus Equality

Attempts at “one-upmanship,” like claiming to be smarter or more knowledgeable, generally provoke such defensive responses as ignoring the message, competition, and jealousy. Those claiming superiority communicate that they don’t want help or need feedback and may try to reduce the social standing of receivers. Status and power differences are less disruptive if participants indicate that they want to work with others on an equal basis. Supportive communicators treat others as partners worthy of respect and trust.

Certainty Versus Provisionalism

Dogmatic, inflexible individuals claim to have all the answers and are unwilling to change or to consider other points of view. They have little patience with those they consider wrong. As a consequence, they appear more interested in being right than in solving the problem and maintaining group relationships. Gibb found that listeners often perceive the certainty of dogmatic individuals as a mask hiding their feelings of inferiority. Conversely, provisional individuals are willing to experiment and explore. They want to investigate issues instead of taking sides or controlling outcomes. These communicators gladly accept help from others as they seek information and answers.

· Psychological safety is an important by-product of open, supportive communication. Psychological safety refers to the shared belief that individuals can speak up without fear of being embarrassed or rejected. Members trust and respect each other and know that they can challenge the leader’s decisions if necessary.13 Lack of psychological safety played an important role in the 1996 climbing disaster on Mt. Everest.14 That year, the leaders of two climbing groups and several of their clients died after getting caught in a storm. The climbers perished because they continued to the summit long after they should have turned back. Both clients and guides were reluctant to challenge the decision to continue on because they didn’t feel safe doing so. Clients were strangers who didn’t trust one another and feared being embarrassed if they expressed an unpopular opinion. Group leaders also made it clear that they weren’t open to discussing issues or problems. One told his group that his word was “absolute law” and that he would tolerate no dissension during the climb.

Being Willing to Stand Alone

This final responsibility may be the toughest to assume. Being in the minority is never easy, because it runs contrary to our strong desire to be liked and accepted by others. Nevertheless, the difficulty of standing alone should not be an excuse for keeping quiet instead of speaking up. As we’ll see in the second half of the chapter, team members’ willingness to take issue with the prevailing group opinion is essential if the team is to avoid moral failure. Further, minority dissent can significantly improve group performance. Teams with minority members generally come up with better solutions even if the group doesn’t change its collective mind.15 Group members focus on one solution when there is no minority. They have little incentive to explore the problem in depth. As a result, they disregard novel solutions and converge on one position. Minorities cast doubt on group consensus, stimulating more thought about the dilemma. Members exert more effort because they must resolve the clash between the majority and minority solutions. They pay closer attention to all aspects of the issue, consider more viewpoints, and use a wider variety of problem-solving strategies. Such divergent thinking leads to more creative, higher-quality solutions. Responding to the dissenting views of minorities also encourages team members to resist conformity in other settings.16

In some cases, minorities are successful in persuading the rest of the group to their point of view. Often, this influence is slow and indirect. Majorities initially reject dissenters and their ideas but, over time, forget the source of the arguments and focus instead on the merits of their proposals. This can gradually convert them to the minority viewpoint.17 However, minorities can have an immediate, powerful impact on group opinion under certain conditions.18 Minorities are more likely to convince the rest of the group when members are still formulating their attitudes about an issue. Well-respected dissenters who consistently advocate for their positions are generally more persuasive.

Recognizing the importance of minority opinion should increase our motivation to play this role. We’ll also need to exercise courage in order to accept the consequences for doing so. Teams can do their part to spark dissent by making sure that members come from significantly different backgrounds and perspectives and by protecting rather than attacking those who disagree.

Responding to Ethical Danger Signs

Accepting our moral responsibilities is a good start to improving group ethical performance. However, we also need to be alert to moral pitfalls that arise during team interaction. These traps account for the ethical failure of a great many groups and their members. In this section, I’ll identify five signs that indicate that a team is in ethical danger—groupthink, mismanaged agreement, escalating commitment, excessive control, and moral exclusion—and provide some suggestions for responding to the risks posed by each.

Groupthink

Earlier, I noted that adopting a cooperative orientation is critical to group success. However, there is significant danger in making team unity the group’s primary goal. Social psychologist Irving Janis popularized the term groupthink, which describes teams that put unanimous agreement ahead of reasoned problem solving.19 Janis first noted faulty thinking in small groups of ordinary citizens. For example, he observed one group of heavy smokers meeting to kick the habit who decided that quitting was impossible. One member had stopped, but the rest of the group pressured him back into smoking two packs a day.

The term groupthink became part of the national vocabulary largely based on Janis’s analysis of major U.S. policy disasters, like the failure to anticipate the attack on Pearl Harbor, the invasion of North Korea, the Bay of Pigs fiasco, and the escalation of the Vietnam War. In each of these incidents, some of the brightest (and presumably most ethically minded) political and military leaders in our nation’s history made terrible choices. More recent examples of groupthink include the Challenger and Columbia space shuttle disasters, the decision to storm the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas, the accounting fraud at WorldCom, and the Iraq War.20 (Case Study 7.2, “Groupthink in the Sweat Lodge,” describes another instance of the powerful impact of group conformity.)

Groups are more likely to fall victim to this syndrome when they (1) are highly cohesive, (2) find themselves insulated or isolated from other groups, (3) lack decision-making formats like those described in Chapter 3, (4) have highly directive leaders and members who push for a particular solution, (5) close themselves off from outside information or use such information to reinforce their biases, and (6) are under stress with little hope of coming up with alternatives to the ideas offered by their leaders. These forces exert pressure on members to agree and produce the following symptoms, which I’ll illustrate through examples taken from Janis’s analysis of major policy disasters. The greater the number of these characteristics displayed by a group, the greater the likelihood that members have made cohesiveness their top priority.21

Signs of Overconfidence

1. The illusion of invulnerability. Members think they can do no wrong. They are overly optimistic and prone to take extraordinary risks. President Lyndon Johnson and his advisors kept escalating the war in Vietnam because they thought the North Vietnamese would back down. One policy maker later remarked, “We thought we had the golden touch.”

2. 2. Belief in the inherent morality of the group. Participants do not question the inherent morality of the group and therefore ignore the ethical consequences of their actions and decisions. In discussions of the Cuban Bay of Pigs operation (which resulted in the death or capture of all the invading troops), President Kennedy’s policy group barely noted the ethical implications of attacking a small neighboring country or of lying to the American public about the invasion. Later, during the deliberations that safely ended the Cuban missile crisis, many of the same group members debated at length the morality of a surprise air attack. The team decided that this option was not in the best, moral American tradition.

Signs of Closed-Mindedness

1. Collective rationalization. Group members invent rationalizations to protect themselves from any feedback that would challenge their operating assumptions. In 1941, U.S. naval officers rationalized that any enemy carriers headed for Hawaii would be detected before attack. Warships anchored in Pearl Harbor would be safe from torpedo bombs because the water was too shallow.

2. Stereotypes of outside groups. Decision makers underestimate the capabilities of other groups (armies, citizens, teams), thinking that people in these groups are weak or stupid. President Truman and his advisors fell victim to the belief that the Chinese wouldn’t be able to respond to an invasion of North Korea by the United States. As a result of this miscalculation, China entered the Korean conflict, and the war ended in a stalemate.

Signs of Group Pressure

1. Pressure on dissenters. Majority members coerce dissenters to go along with the prevailing opinion in the group. Former presidential advisor Bill Moyers felt the power of this pressure after taking issue with the escalation of the Vietnam War. When he arrived at one strategy discussion, President Johnson greeted him by saying, “Well, here comes Mr. Stop-the-Bombing.”

2. 2. Self-censorship. Individuals keep their doubts about group decisions to themselves. Perhaps because of being labeled as “Mr. Stop-the-Bombing,” Moyers became a “domesticated dissenter” who expressed reservations only about a few details of the plan to ratchet up the war in Vietnam.

3. 3. The illusion of unanimity. Since members keep quiet, the group mistakenly assumes that everyone agrees on a course of action. Historian Arthur Schlesinger, a participant in the Bay of Pigs planning sessions, had serious doubts about the project, but he and others remained silent because they assumed the group had consensus.

4. Self-appointed mind-guards. Certain members take it upon themselves to protect the leader and others from dissenting opinions that might disrupt the group’s consensus. President Kennedy’s brother Robert took this role during the Bay of Pigs decision. He told Schlesinger, “You may be right or you may be wrong, but the President has made his mind up. Don’t push it any further. Now is the time for everyone to help him all they can.”22

The symptoms of groupthink seriously disrupt the decision-making process. Members fail to consider all the alternatives, outline objectives, or gather additional information. They follow preconceived notions, are less likely to reexamine a course of action when it’s not working, don’t carefully weigh risks, or work out contingency plans. While groupthink undermines all types of decisions, it is particularly destructive to ethical reasoning. This helps explain why, in the 1980s, Beech-Nut employees decided to sell adulterated apple juice, and E. F. Hutton officials defrauded financial institutions by writing checks before they had deposited the funds to cover them. Nearly everyone (including employees of these two firms) would agree that selling “phony” apple juice and bouncing checks are wrong. However, groupthink banished any moral considerations.23

Interest in the causes and prevention of groupthink remains high decades after Janis first offered his theory.24 Contemporary researchers have discovered that social cohesion is dangerous, while task cohesion (agreement about how to complete the group’s work) is not. Investigators note that self-directed teams, which incorporate an estimated 40% of the workforce, are particularly vulnerable to groupthink. Members work under strict time limits and are often isolated and undertrained. They may fail at first, and the need to function as a cohesive unit may blind them to ethical dilemmas.25

Janis and his successors offer the following suggestions for preventing groupthink:

· As a leader, don’t express a preference for a particular solution; solicit ideas instead.

· Utilize a decision-making format.

· Divide the group regularly into subgroups, and then bring the entire group back together to negotiate differences.

· Construct and then debate counterproposals.

· Bring in outsiders—experts or colleagues—to challenge the group’s ideas.

· Appoint individuals to act as devil’s advocates at each session to air doubts and objections.

· Realistically assess dangers and anticipate possible setbacks.

· Train members to speak up.

· Encourage dissenting points of view.

· Think through the ethical implications of options.

· Adopt an optimistic frame of mind, viewing obstacles as opportunities and envisioning success.

· Develop group norms that encourage critical thinking about reasoning, assumptions, and alternatives.

· Avoid isolation; keep the group in contact with other groups.

· Initiate role play of the reactions of other groups and organizations to reduce the effects of stereotyping and rationalization.

· Once a decision has been made, give group members one last chance to express any remaining doubts about the decision.

Mismanaged Agreement

Groups frequently run into trouble when members publicly express their support for decisions that they oppose in private. Teams continue to pour time and money into new products that no one believes will succeed, for example, or engage in illegal activities that everyone in the group is uneasy about. George Washington University management professor Jerry Harvey refers to this phenomenon as mismanaged agreement, or the Abilene paradox.26 He describes a time when his family decided to drive (without air conditioning) 100 miles across the Texas desert, one hot July afternoon, from their home in Coleman to Abilene so they could eat a bad meal at a rundown cafeteria. After returning home, family members discovered that no one had really wanted to make the trip. Each had agreed to go to Abilene on the assumption that everyone else in the group was enthusiastic about eating out.

Harvey believes that failure to manage agreement, not failure to manage conflict, is the biggest problem facing organizations. Like his family, teams also take needless “trips”:

I now call the tendency for groups to embark on excursions that no group member wants “the Abilene Paradox.” Stated simply, when organizations blunder into the Abilene Paradox, they take actions in contradiction to what they really want to do and therefore defeat the very purposes they are trying to achieve.27

Members of groups caught in the Abilene paradox agree in private about the nature of the problem and what ought to be done about it. However, they fail to communicate their desires and beliefs, misleading others into believing that consensus exists. Based on faulty assumptions, members act in counterproductive ways that undermine their purposes. These actions generate lots of anger and irritation, and participants blame each other for the group’s failures. The cycle of miscommunication and misunderstanding continues unless confronted. (You can determine if your group is suffering from mismanaged agreement by completing Self-Assessment 7.2.)

Why do members publicly support decisions they privately oppose? Harvey offers the following five psychological factors to account for the paradox:

1. Action anxiety. Group members know what should be done but are too anxious to follow through on their beliefs. They choose to endure the negative consequences of going along (professional and economic failure) instead of speaking up.

2. Negative fantasies. Action anxiety is driven in part by the negative fantasies members have about what will happen if they voice their opinions. These fantasies (“I’ll be shunned or branded as disloyal”) serve as an excuse for not attacking the problem, absolving the individual (in his or her own eyes) of any responsibility.

3. Real risk. There are risks to expressing dissent: getting fired, lost income, damaged relationships. However, most of the time the danger is not as great as we think.

4. Fear of separation. Separation, alienation, and loneliness constitute the most powerful force behind the paradox. Ostracism is strong punishment. Group members fear being cut off or separated from others. To escape this fate, they cheat, lie, take bribes, use accounting tricks to boost earnings, and so forth.

5. Psychological reversal of risk and certainty. In the Abilene paradox, participants let their negative fantasies drive them into real dangers. Fearing that something bad may happen, decision makers act in a way that fulfills the fantasy. For instance, group members may support a project with no chance of success because they are afraid they will be fired or demoted if they don’t. Ironically, they are likely to be fired or demoted anyway when the flawed project fails.

Harvey takes issue with proponents of groupthink who blame moral failure on group pressure. He contends that as long as we can blame our peers, we don’t have to accept personal responsibility. In reality, we always have a choice as to how we respond. He uses the Gunsmoke myth to drive home this point. In this myth, the lone Western sheriff (Matt Dillon in the radio and television series Gunsmoke) stands down a mob of armed townsfolk out to lynch his prisoner. If group tyranny is really at work, Harvey argues, Dillon stands no chance. After all, he is outnumbered 500 to 1 and could be felled with a single bullet from one rioter. The mob disbands because its members really didn’t want to lynch the prisoner in the first place.

Breaking out of the paradox begins with diagnosing its symptoms in your group or organization. Important indicators of mismanaged agreement include frustration and blaming, contradictions between privately and publicly expressed opinions, and the inability to solve problems. If you believe that the group is on its way to its own Abilene, call a meeting where you own up to your true feelings and invite feedback. The team may immediately come up with a better approach, or it may engage in extended conflict that generates a more creative solution. You might suffer for your honesty, but you could be rewarded for saying what everyone else was thinking. In any case, you’ll feel better about yourself for speaking up.

Self-Assessment 7.2

Group Diagnostic Survey

Put a check mark next to each of the following items if it is characteristic of your small group. The more check marks you make, the more likely your team is experiencing mismanaged agreement. (You can also use this survey to diagnose your organization as a whole by substituting “organization” for “group” in each item.)

1. There is conflict in the group.

2. Group members feel frustrated, impotent, and unhappy when trying to deal with it. Many are looking for ways to escape. They may avoid meetings at which the conflict is discussed.

3. Group members place much of the blame for the dilemma on the boss or on other groups.

4. Trusted friends and associates from the team meet informally over coffee, lunch, and so on to discuss the group’s problems. There is lots of agreement as to the cause of the problems and the solutions to solve the problems.

5. In meetings, where these same individuals meet with other members of the team to discuss the problem they “soften their positions,” state them in ambiguous language, or even reverse them to suit the apparent positions taken by others.

6. After such meetings, members complain to their trusted friends and associates that they didn’t really say what they wanted to say. They provide a list of reasons why their comments, suggestions, and reactions would have been impossible.

7. Attempts to solve the problem do not seem to work. In fact, such attempts seem to add to the problem or make it worse.

8. Outside the group individuals seem to get along better, be happier, and operate more effectively than they do within it.

SOURCE: Adapted from Harvey, J. B. (2001). The Abilene Paradox: The management of agreement. Organizational Dynamics, 33, 17–34. Used by permission.

Escalating Commitment

As we’ve seen, one of the products of mismanaged agreement is continuation along a failed course of action. Social psychologists refer to this phenomenon as the escalation of commitment.28 Instead of cutting their losses, groups redouble their efforts, pouring in more resources. Costs continue to multiply, until the moment when the team finally admits defeat. Escalating commitment helps explain why bankers continue to loan money to problem borrowers (see Case Study 7.3), why managers maintain support for failing employees, and why investors put more money into declining stocks. Well-publicized cases of this phenomenon include creation of the automated baggage system at the Denver International Airport (which delayed the opening of the airport and never worked), the decision to introduce the New Coke, and the failed Shoreham Nuclear Power Plant. Costs for the Shoreham project on New York’s Long Island ballooned from $75 million to over $5 billion over a 23-year period. The installation failed to produce a single kilowatt of electric power. Escalation of commitment also played a role in the Everest tragedy described earlier, as well as in a similar disaster on K-2 in 2008. Clients paid $60,000–$70,000 to summit these mountains. Once they were near the top, it was very difficult to convince some of them to turn around after they had invested so much time, money, and effort. Instead, they fell victim to “summit fever” and put themselves in grave danger.

Teams may stay the course to justify their earlier choices, to remain consistent, and to retain their credibility. (In some cases, the larger organization pressures them to continue.) Group members may have a personal stake in continuing the project because their jobs and reputations are at stake. They often hope to recoup their “sunk costs” (previous investments). Setbacks are viewed as temporary; success is seen as just around the corner. Groups have a tendency to take more risks than individuals (a phenomenon referred to as risky shift), which can encourage members to contribute more resources than they would on their own. Teams also fall victim to cognitive biases that encourage escalation. They may (1) ignore negative feedback or interpret evidence so it supports their point of view (selective perception), (2) believe that they have more control over outcomes than they actually do (illusion of control), (3) blame those who bring bad news, and (4) become overconfident based on past successes.29

Group members have a moral obligation to avoid escalation of commitment. Continuing to invest in doomed projects wastes resources that could go to better uses and puts the organization at risk. Often, maintaining a failing course of action involves unethical behaviors, like overstating potential benefits or hiding safety problems. We can take a number of steps to de-escalate commitment to destructive courses of action.30 First, don’t ignore negative feedback or external pressure. Combat the tendency to be overly optimistic by being alert to red flags like missed deadlines, cost overruns, and pressure from outsiders who take issue with the project. Second, bring new group members or leaders into the group who are less invested in the program. Third, hire an outside auditor to provide a “fresh set of eyes” to assess the severity of the problem and to suggest alternative courses of action. Fourth, don’t be afraid to withhold further funding until more information can be gathered. Fifth, look for opportunities to deinstitutionalize the project by separating it from the key goals of the organization or by isolating it physically. Corporations frequently spin off troubled units, for example, and risky projects can be redefined as “experiments.”

Excessive Control

Members of newly formed self-directed work teams frequently find that the group exerts more control over their behavior than their former managers ever did. One team member at a small manufacturing company complained, for example, that his group had stricter rules about tardiness than his old boss and that he was more closely observed than before:

[Now] I don’t have to sit there and look for the boss to be around; [before] if the boss is not around, I can sit there and talk to my neighbor or do what I want. Now the whole team is around me and the whole team is observing what I’m doing.31

The experience of this employee illustrates the power of concertive control. Concertive control has replaced the traditional rules-based bureaucracy in many organizations.32 Members of these companies and nonprofits identify with the organization, putting its needs above their own. In these settings, groups empowered to direct their own behaviors exert control by agreeing on a common set of values, engaging in high levels of coordination, and creating their own enforcement mechanisms. Concertive control (sometimes referred to as unobtrusive control) is subtler than its bureaucratic predecessor and often goes unrecognized. This combination of high power and low visibility makes concertive influence particularly dangerous. Members can unwittingly exert excessive, unhealthy influence over one another.

Organizational communication expert James Barker describes how self-directed work teams transition from freeing to imprisoning their members.33 In the first phase, newly formed groups develop their vision and values statements. These values then become the basis for making ethical decisions in the group. Members commit themselves to reaching shared goals and develop norms for putting their values into action. A group might implement its concern for customer service, for instance, by adopting the norm that it will do whatever it takes to ship products on time.

In the second phase, members turn their norms into specific behavioral rules, like “You must stay late in order to meet shipping schedules.” These rules are then used to regulate the behavior of new members. In the third phase, the rules are formalized. They are written down and used for evaluation. A member may be removed from the team if he or she doesn’t work overtime to help ship products, for example. These rules can be stricter than those operating in a bureaucracy. Group members are thus imprisoned in an “iron cage” of regulations of their own making.

Barker is concerned that “concertive control is the next step on our long march toward totally organized lives.”34 Members pay a high price for remaining in good standing with the team, including burnout and the sacrifice of family and personal time. Teams can make sure that concertive control is put to constructive use by continually criticizing their own actions, according to Barker. They need to set aside regular times (perhaps an hour a month) to talk about their moral reasoning and the positive and negative effects of their practices. Some values and rules will be reaffirmed, while others will be modified. In such discussions, it is critical that everyone be heard and that members engage in dialogue, working through their differences. This ongoing group analysis is the best way to ensure that a team creates a fair and reasonable system of norms and regulations to guide its members.

Moral Exclusion

The worst examples of group behavior arise out of the process of moral exclusion. In moral exclusion, group and societal members set a psychological boundary around justice.35 Those inside the boundary treat each other fairly, are willing to sacrifice for one another, and share collective resources. However, insiders treat outsiders much differently. Fairness is no longer a consideration. Those beyond the scope of justice (often members of low-status groups) are seen as unimportant and expendable. Insiders don’t feel remorse when outsiders are harmed but believe that the mistreatment is morally justified.

Mild forms of exclusion are part of everyday life and include, for example, acting in a patronizing manner, applying double standards to judge the behavior of different groups, and making unflattering comparisons to appear superior to others. An example of ordinary exclusion would be a work team that mocks other groups while excusing its own failings. Milder forms of exclusion are common in conflicts over environmental issues, where opposing sides claim the moral high ground and are quick to label their opponents as “ecofreaks,” or “foot-dragging big businesses.”36 Extreme forms of exclusion produce human rights violations, torture, genocide, and other atrocities. For instance, Japanese soldiers in World War II viewed the Chinese with contempt. Murdering them was no more troubling than “squashing a bug or butchering a hog.”37 Driven by this belief, they were willing to rape, torture, and slaughter civilians in the Chinese city of Nanking, killing approximately 300,000 residents. Similar exclusionary reasoning has been to justify genocide in Serbia and Guatemala, attacks on villages in the Darfur region of Sudan, the execution of captured Iraqi soldiers by ISIS militia members, and the abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison. A list of the symptoms of moral exclusion is given in Ethics in Action 7.3.

Dispute resolution expert Susan Opotow believes that moral exclusion progresses through five stages or elements, which can reinforce one another. The presence of one or more of these elements serves as a warning that this danger is present.38

1. Conflicts of interest are salient. Moral exclusion is more likely to occur during conflicts where one group wins at the expense of the other. As tensions increase, members separate themselves from their opponents, focusing on differences based on religion, education, ethnic background, social status, skin color, job functions, and other factors.

2. Group categorizations are salient. The characteristics of members of the opposing group are given negative labels, dividing the world into those who deserve empathy and help and those who don’t. These derogatory labels excuse unfair treatment and negative outcomes. Romanians and Hungarians, for example, reinforce negative stereotypes of Gypsies or Romanies by describing them as “dirty,” “thieves,” and “lazy.”39

3. 3. Moral justifications are prominent. Damaging behavior is justified and even celebrated as a way to strike a blow against a corrupt foe. Such exclusionary moral claims are self-serving, excuse wrongdoing, and set boundaries by denigrating outsiders. For instance, Hutu leaders in Rwanda whipped their followers into a murderous rage by playing on their resentments toward their higher-status Tutsi neighbors.

4. Unjust procedures are described as expedient. Harm is often disguised through policies and procedures, what some observers label “administrative evil.”40 In administrative evil, ordinary people commit heinous crimes while carrying out their daily tasks. The Holocaust demonstrates administrative evil in action. Extermination camps would not have been possible without the cooperation of thousands of civil servants who identified “undesirables” and seized their assets, managed the ghettos, built concentration camp latrines, and shipped prisoners to their deaths. Procedures can be identified as unjust when they fail to serve the interests of those they are supposed to benefit. For example, government bureaucrats in the United States and Australia claimed to be helping Native peoples even as they stole their lands and tried to eradicate their cultures. Military officials in Japan believed that committing atrocities would ultimately benefit the Chinese because, once subjugated, they would prosper under Japanese rule.

5. 5. Harmful outcomes occur. The negative products of exclusion are both physical and psychological. Members of excluded groups may suffer physical harm and, at the same time, suffer from a loss of self-esteem and identity as they internalize the negative judgments of the dominant group. Perpetrators also pay a high price. They have to expend significant energy and resources to deal with conflicts, excuse their conduct, and maintain exclusionary systems. The harm they cause overshadows any good that they do.

Opotow argues that adopting a pluralistic perspective—one that acknowledges the legitimacy of a variety of groups—can help us deter moral exclusion at each stage of its development.41 This approach sees conflicts as opportunities to integrate the interests of all parties, not as win-lose battles. Members of pluralistic groups enlarge the definition of moral community by including people of all categories and try to understand their perspectives. Participants engage in critical analysis of moral justifications, calling into question suspect claims at the same time they develop equitable procedures for distributing resources. They also support dissenters.

Ethics in Action 7.3 Symptoms of Moral Exclusion

SOURCE: Opotow, S., Gerson, J., & Woodside, S. (2005). From moral exclusion to moral inclusion: Theory for teaching peace. Theory into Practice, 44(4), 303–318, p. 307. Used by permission.

Chapter Takeaways

· Your behavior will have a significant impact on your team’s ethical success or failure.

· Recognize that your success in a group is dependent on the efforts of others. Adopt a cooperative orientation, not an individualistic or competitive perspective, and encourage others to do the same.

· Do your fair share. Combat the tendency to engage in social loafing by strengthening connections between individual effort and group performance as well as between group performance and group success. Increase the positive value of the team’s collective product to members.

· Be open and supportive. Talk about issues and help others to succeed. Promote a supportive climate by engaging in communication that is descriptive, problem oriented, spontaneous, empathetic, egalitarian, and provisional. Create an atmosphere in which members feel safe to discuss problems and challenge leaders.

· Have the courage to stand alone. Expressing a minority opinion is key to avoiding moral failure and increases group decision-making effectiveness even when the majority does not adopt the dissenters’ point of view. In some cases, you might convert the rest of the group to your way of thinking.

· Signs of groupthink—putting unanimity ahead of careful problem solving—include overconfidence (the illusion of invulnerability and belief in the inherent morality of the group), closed-mindedness (collective rationalization and stereotypes of outside groups), and group pressure (pressure on dissenters, self-censorship, the illusion of unanimity, and self-appointed mind-guards).

· Reduce the likelihood of groupthink by (1) withholding your initial opinion, (2) dividing the group into subgroups, (3) bringing in outsiders, (4) keeping the group in contact with other groups, (5) role playing the reactions of other teams, and (6) revisiting the decision.

· Mismanaged agreement—the Abilene paradox—occurs when members publicly express support for decisions that they oppose in private. The group then acts in counterproductive ways that undermine its goals. Owning up to your doubts can stop the team from taking unwanted “trips.”

· Groups trapped in escalating commitment pursue failed courses of action, continuing to pour in additional resources when they should go in another direction instead. They may want to justify their earlier choices, hope to recoup their previous investments, or fall victim to cognitive biases that encourage escalation. You can deescalate the situation by noting warning signs, bringing in new members or outside auditors, withholding funding, and deinstitutionalizing the project—making it less central to group goals and physically isolating it.

· Be aware of the power of concertive control, in which teams manage the behavior of members by agreeing on a common set of values, engaging in high levels of coordination, and creating their own enforcement mechanisms. Such control is often more intrusive than traditional bureaucracy. However, you can put this form of group influence to constructive use by encouraging your team to regularly examine, criticize, and modify its values and rules.

· Resist the temptation to engage in moral exclusion—placing members of other groups outside the scope of justice where the rules of fairness do not apply. The five stages or elements of moral exclusion are these: (1) Conflicts of interest are salient. (2) Group categorizations are salient. (3) Moral justifications are prominent. (4) Unjust procedures are described as expedient. (5) Harmful outcomes occur. Deter moral exclusion by adopting a pluralistic perspective that respects the rights of all groups.

Application Projects

1. What was your best small-group experience? Your worst? What accounts for the differences between these two experiences? How would your rate the moral behavior of each group?

2. Interview a project manager. What strategies does this individual use to foster collaboration and individual and team accountability? Report your findings to the rest of the class.

3. Record a group discussion, and then identify and categorize the defensive and supportive comments made by team members. What do you conclude about the communication climate of the group? Report your conclusions to the team you observe.

4. Rate your performance as a morally responsible group member. What behaviors do you demonstrate? Need to develop? What steps can you take to improve?

5. Find a partner and discuss your responses to Self-Assessment 7.1. What similarities do you note between the behaviors and the impact of the social loafers both of you rated? How did you respond to them? What would you do differently in the future?

6. If you are part of an ongoing team, meet together to discuss members’ tendencies to loaf and how the group exercises control over its members. Develop an action plan to address these issues. As an alternative, complete Self-Assessment 7.2 as a team and then discuss your results as a team. Identify strategies for dealing with mismanaged agreement if it exists in your group.

7. Create a case study based on a group that fell victim to escalation of commitment. Why did the group stay the course? Was it able to deescalate? What was the end result? What do you learn from the case?

8. Examine a significant conflict between groups that produced negative outcomes. Analyze the role played by moral exclusion in this situation. Provide examples of the five elements of exclusion in action. Write up your findings.

9. Which of the dangers described in the chapter does the most damage to the ethical performance of groups? Defend your choice.

Case Study 7.2

Groupthink in the Sweat Lodge

In October 2009, a group of spiritual seekers paid from $9,000 to $10,000 each to attend a five-day Spiritual Warrior Retreat near Sedona, Arizona, led by self-help expert and New Age guru James Arthur Ray. Ray is the author of the best-selling book Harmonic Wealth: The Secret of Attracting the Life You Want and is featured in the video The Secret. His company, James Ray International, took in over $9 million in 2008.

The Spiritual Warrior Retreat, which participants were told “will push you beyond your perceived limits,” included seminars, spiritual cleansing exercises, and other activities.1 The week culminated in a 36-hour vision quest without food or water in the desert, followed by a meal and a closing sweat lodge ceremony. The ceremony was designed as an intense “rebirthing” experience to help participants make significant life changes. Held in a 415-square-foot enclosure built of blankets and plastic sheeting surrounding a fire pit, the lodge could comfortably handle 20 to 25 people but was packed with 55 seekers that day. Heated rocks were placed in the fire pit every round and doused with water. Sandalwood (believed to be toxic when burned) was added to produce incense. Participants sat in darkness, while Ray, standing near the tent door, exhorted them to continue despite their extreme discomfort. He told the group, “Play full on, you have to go through this barrier,”2 and “You will have to get to a point where you surrender and it’s O.K. to die.”3

The sweat lodge soon became what one reporter called “a human cooking pot,” searing the lungs of retreat-goers and baking their internal organs.4 Not only was the sweat lodge overcrowded, but the plastic sheeting also didn’t let the steam escape, further increasing the temperature in the enclosure. Three people died, and 19 more received emergency medical treatment for dehydration, burns, breathing problems, organ failure, and elevated body temperature. Those in the lodge report that Ray ignored signs that something was terribly amiss. When people started vomiting, he declared that vomiting “was good for you, that you are purging what your body doesn’t want, what it doesn’t need.”5 When told that a woman had fainted just after he closed the enclosure door between rounds of the ceremony, Ray continued on, noting, “We will deal with that after the next round.”6

Police and other observers wonder why participants didn’t leave the tent even when they literally began to cook to death. (It should be noted that some might have been overcome before they could save themselves.) Escalation of commitment might be partially to blame. Retreat-goers spent thousands of dollars and invested several days in the event and wanted to continue to the end, hoping for a final spiritual breakthrough. However, groupthink appears to be a more significant contributing factor. The retreat experience put a good deal of pressure on participants to conform. They were isolated, under the direction of a powerful authority figure, and subjected to significant physical stress even before entering the sweat lodge. Thus, it is not surprising that followers displayed symptoms of groupthink. Ray allegedly pressured possible dissenters. He discouraged members from leaving the tent by his presence at the door and by telling those tempted to exit, “You can do better than this.”7 Individuals apparently engaged in self-censorship, keeping their doubts about the safety of the lodge to themselves. One client, for example, was troubled about a game played earlier in the week in which Ray (dressed in white robes) played God and ordered some participants to commit mock suicide. However, she didn’t leave then because she didn’t want to ruin the experience for others. There was also the illusion of unanimity. Some members of the group may have concluded that if the rest of the participants thought conditions in the lodge were tolerable, then it must be safe to stay. The darkness may have hidden the fact that others were in serious trouble.

Ray was acquitted of manslaughter charges (which could have led to a sentence of 30 years) in 2011. He was convicted of three counts of negligent homicide instead, spent two years in prison, and was released in 2013. Members of the victims’ families felt that the New Age guru should have gotten a much longer sentence but hoped the tragedy would serve as a warning to other spiritual seekers. Ray claimed that what happened in the lodge was a tragic accident, not a crime, and that he didn’t know anyone was in distress. He and his attorneys and supporters argued that the participants were warned of the dangers of the experience (they signed waivers indicating that death could result). A nurse was on duty outside the lodge, and drinks were available. People were free to leave the lodge when they wished. However, events that day suggest that while participants may have been physically free to exit, the power of groupthink kept them trapped in the tent as the temperature soared.

Discussion Probes

1. What other symptoms of groupthink (if any) do you see in this case?

2. Is groupthink a greater danger for spiritual groups than other types of groups? Why or why not?

3. What other ethical danger signs do you see in the sweat lodge tragedy?

4. What steps could retreat participants have taken to protect themselves and others?

5. Was Ray’s sentence too harsh or too light?

6. What do you learn from this case that you can apply as a group member?

Notes

1. Archibold and Berger (2010).

2. Dougherty (2009, October 23).

3. Lacey (2011).

4. Gumbel (2009, October 22).

5. Dougherty (2009, October 22).

6. Dougherty (2009, October 23).

7. Dougherty (2009, October 22). Other sources for this section are Archibold (2010, January 14); Dougherty (2009, October 12); Lirbyson (2009, October 24); O’Neill (2013, July 13); Ortega (2011, November 19).

Case Study 7.3

To Loan or Not to Loan?

Harry Edwards is the loan officer at High Plains Bank, a small bank located in a town of 3,000 people in rural Oklahoma. High Plains, like many other small financial institutions, makes most of its loans to small businesses and engages in relational banking. In relational banking, bank officials focus on establishing close relationships with customers. Relational banking allows loan officers to get to know their customers better to determine if they are good credit risks. (Small businesses are not required to have audited financial statements.) Customers benefit because the trusting relationships they develop with their bankers allows them more flexibility in negotiating their loan terms. The community benefits as the flow of capital keeps businesses open. However, relational banking can pose a risk to small institutions because it encourages bank officers to make bad loans to those they have befriended.

Edwards is scheduled to meet with the bank president and vice-president to evaluate the High Plains’ loan portfolio, which has not performed well lately. The Highway Market loan will be the main topic of discussion. Highway Market borrowed $300,000 to upgrade its store, replacing the flooring and roof, adding a new bakery and deli department, replacing freezers, creating wider aisles, and so on. However, market owners Bert and Samantha Smith have fallen behind in their loan payments and need another $100,000 to finish the renovation project. They have asked High Plains for the additional amount. The Smiths are long-time customers of the bank and have never fallen behind in their payments before. Edwards, the bank president, and vice-president all serve on community nonprofit boards with the Smiths. In paperwork submitted to High Plains, the Smiths blame their delinquent loan payments on the fact that the disruption caused by the remodel has reduced traffic to their store. They are convinced that the renovation will more than pay for itself in higher sales when completed. While Highway Market is the only grocery store in town (and badly needs the upgrade), Harry knows that a new Wal-Mart superstore featuring low prices is coming to another small community 15 miles away. He anticipates that residents of his town will spend some of their grocery budgets at Wal-Mart after it opens in two months.

Should Harry Edwards recommend that the bank loan another $100,000 to Highway Market? Why or why not?

SOURCE: Background information on relationship banking at small financial