Washington Commanders. Were all the good names taken?
Within a day of announcing the new name for the Washington Football Team, the jokes were writing themselves. The Babylon Bee was quick to recommend General Custer as the official team mascot. The Onion followed soon after, suggesting that $30 billion in defense expenditures would buy a lot of free agents. And several on social media noted that “Commanders” would likely be shortened to “Commies.” The Washington Commies. Your athletic comrades in Washington. You get the drift.
Somehow, even after more than two years of effort, they found a blander name than “Washington Football Team.”
They could have chosen Red Tails. Monuments had a great ring to it. The Washington Armada would have worked. Washington Admirals was pretty lame, but a least worst option. And if all else failed, they still had Washington Football Team. Which, as names go, is pretty safe. But Washington Commanders? The obvious historical references aside, how do you come up with such a vanilla name for the team?
Groupthink. That’s how.
what is Groupthink?
First coined by social psychologist Irving Janis in a 1971 Psychology Today article, groupthink is a phenomenon that occurs “when a group of well-intentioned people make irrational or non-optimal decisions” driven by the need to conform to the group or in the belief that dissent is impossible. This might be fueled by a deliberate agenda, but it may also be the result of group members seeking harmony over critical thought. In the quest for consensus, individuals refrain from disagreeing with the group, offering doubts, or expressing contrary opinions.
As Kathryn Haydon expressed in another Psychology Today article: Groupthink is the “manifestation of the inertia of no.” As the sense of belonging in a group emerges, the risk of groupthink increases as individual members of the group cling to the sense of unity. The desire to maintain group unity is human nature, but it can have dangerous consequences.
Recognizing groupthink – or even the potential for groupthink – on your team is an essential first step toward addressing the problem. How engaged are your team members? Are they resigned to the direction of the group? Is morale in the toilet? What are the subtle signs that groupthink is afoot?
- Surround yourself with like-minded people and you’ll get like-minded solutions? Everybody in the room look the same? Odds are good that they think the same, too.
- Do the people on your team look like they’d rather be someplace else? People staring at their phones? Drawing cartoons in their notebooks? That kind of apathy leads to expedient conformity.
- Are you the only voice in the room? Do you have all the answers? Does your personality overshadow the group? You might not realize it, but that can be intimidating. And we all know where that leads.
- Do the people on your team hold back? Are they reluctant to offer feedback? Does anyone ever disagree with you? It’s not your breath, it’s just you. Fear is the path to the dark side… and to groupthink.
HOW DO YOU AVOID IT?
Avoiding groupthink is a lot easier than you might think. Well, unless you’ve got an overbearing, domineering, and generally foul personality. Odds are you don’t, or you wouldn’t have read this far. So, assuming you actually care about eliminating groupthink, there are five quick steps to do so:
- Nothing gets in the way of groupthink more than open, transparent communication. Once you’ve cleared the way for others to offer ideas and feedback, you’ve plowed a path forward that will be clear of groupthink.
- Encourage people to share. Welcome other opinions. Allow people to freely engage in dialog. As you open the feedback loop, trust will follow. And where trust thrives, groupthink dies.
- Embrace both sides of an argument; encourage respectful dissent. Get disruptive. Shake it up. The end result is better ideas free from the burdens of groupthink.
- One of the best tools to avoid groupthink is to ask open-ended questions that spur critical thinking. The more you challenge your team think on their own, the better the outcomes will be.
- Don’t rush to failure. Take the time necessary to make the right decisions at the right time. Give your team the time to think through options. Effective decision making takes the steam out of groupthink.
So, maybe “Commanders” wasn’t the worst name, but it still seems like the kind of choice you get when groupthink runs rampant. It’s not particularly catchy. It doesn’t seem inspired at all. The one positive in all of this? Tom Brady has never beaten the Washington Commanders and probably never will. They’ve got that going for them.
