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88 MANAGING KNOWLEDGE WORK AND INNOVATION

that this was related to excessive conformity pressures that built up within these
teams who had worked together over time. He labeled this phenomenon ‘group-
think’ and identified a number of symptoms associated with it:

1. Illusion of invulnerability: members believe that past successes guarantee
future successes and so take extreme risks.
2. Collective rationalization: members collectively rationalize away information
that contradicts their assumptions.
3. Illusion of morality: members believe that they are all moral and so could not
make a bad decision.
4. Shared stereotypes: members dismiss evidence that is contradictory by
discrediting the source of that information.

5. Direct pressure: sanctions are placed on members who do dissent from the
majority opinion, for example, using assertive language to enforce compliance.
6. Self-censorship: members keep quiet about any misgivings they have so that
they do not voice concerns.
7. Mind-guards: members screen out information from outsiders where this
might disconfirm the group’s assumptions and beliefs.

8. Illusion of unanimity: given these other symptoms, it appears that there is
consensus within the group, even though there are many of those involved
who do not agree with the group decision.
Groupthink has been found to develop where there is a powerful team leader
who makes known his or her preferences at an early stage, and where this is cou-
pled with a strong drive to reach consensus because of pressures of time, which
means that a decision needs to be reached quickly. In this situation, conformity
to this leader’s preference (i.e. to the leader’s knowledge) is likely to occur. The
tragic launching and subsequent explosion of the Challenger Space Shuttle has
been analysed as an example of groupthink (Moorhead et al., 1991) as has, more
recently, the Columbia Space Shuttle disaster. Again, as noted above, conformity
can restrict the knowledge sharing and so knowledge creation in a team. More-
over, such group conformity – that is, groupthink – may be particularly relevant
in the context of organizational project work because projects often work to very
tight deadlines, which encourages the time pressures that have been found to
encourage this type of restricted knowledge sharing. This helps to explain why
projects often work to a logic of consequentiality (what is most expedient), rather
than a logic of appropriateness (what is best), as discussed in the next chapter.

Group polarization
Another problem that we can identify from the literature on team-working in
relation to knowledge creation is that teams tend to make more extreme decisions

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