There is an old adage that You can’t read the label from inside the jar. The story is told in many forms, “The Emperor’s New Clothes” is just one example.
Groupthink is when everyone drinks the group Kool Aid and agrees with an entrenched group idea based on their common assumptions. These assumptions may not make any sense from outside the group.
When you are inside, it is almost impossible to challenge the assumptions and break through the wall sometimes invisibly isolating a group.
The group is constantly reinforcing those assumptions. It’s the core basis for any cult. At a certain point a cult becomes a society, a religion or even a country. Each has accepted beliefs, factual or not.
It is hard to recognize the predicament when you are in it, to break through and see objectively what needs to be done. Paradoxically, an outsider, like the kid watching the emperor strut by, can often see problems and their solutions easier, even if their opinion is tainted by being their an outsider.
Think of the Stanford prison experiments conducted by Philip Zimbardo. Average people quickly became sadistic tormentors at the urging of other insiders suggesting that it was appropriate and normal. They had no external calibrator to help them see how far they had strayed. An external voice helps you see a situation better, more objectively; it gives you context.
That’s the reason we employ consultants, psychiatrists, even judges. They look at our problems from the outside and see them clearer. It is almost impossible to be the sounding board for yourself. Telling yourself you are the greatest usually means you are not looking at improving. Only listening to judges and consultants that tell you are terrific only makes it worse.
I often found this out as a boss. When I was called into a situation by disagreeing staff from different departments, I could more easily see the problem and solution because I was less invested in taking sides or the origins of the arguments.
Have you wondered why there are so many successful Canadians and minority comedians, actors and singers in the US. They see the US society and culture in a more objective manner than US people who are invested in it can. Their observational comedy can actually see the inconsistencies insiders can’t. Marginalized, minority people can see the hypocrisy of the mainstream.
It is very difficult to look at your own culture in an objective way; you have so much invested in it. You constantly create all the arguments in favour of supporting the positions your group already has. You are being bombarded with more information supporting the culture you are in every day by others in it adding to your bias confirmation.
Think about where you live. It is terrific, right. You almost automatically carry biases with you about your city, your country, your ethnicity, even your name. These are decisions you have endorsed in some way. You are committed to them.
Even your name. When you have a list of candidates for a position, and you know none of them, you are biased to vote for the one with a name similar to yours, ethnically or literally. That may seem shallow, but that’s the way we roll. Someone in our tribe must be more trustworthy than some outsider.
The same is true of recency biases where we overestimate the possibility of something happening because we just saw it. I did an experiment on it once on some classmates. The class were shocked at how they deceived themselves.
So when you meet someone who is from a particular country, they will tell you all the excellent things about that country and ignore the problems. They are drinking the national Kool Aid.
You constantly create all the arguments in favour of supporting the positions your group already has. You are being bombarded with information supporting the culture you are in. Your commitment cannot be second guessed. Even arguments that seem contrary usually are not far off the norm.
When I travel in Canada, people expect some “Toronto is the centre of the universe” attitude – if it didn’t happen in Toronto it is not important. New Yorkers, and other US folks, have the same attitude. It is all about us. There was a New Yorker cover that hung on my wall for many years to remind me how skewed some views of the world can be.
Outsiders are unlike insiders.They might not be able to see themselves as accurately, but they can see things insiders in other groups cannot see.
Minorities can have a clearer perspective of majorities than the majorities do themselves. It is hard for majorities to learn from their neighbours, their minorities, after all, they are the majority. Majorities rule.
Together hearing more than one side to an argument makes us better. And that’s the argument for diversity.
It is also why outside consultants can provide clients with a clearer view of what problems and solutions there may be for their problems. Sometimes, these become obvious once revealed. A client once said to me as he was shaking his head, approving some creative work, “Where do you people come up with this stuff?” It was easier for us because we saw his business differently than he could.
The secret is the outsiders are not drinking the same Kool Aid.
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