Paper Example on Groupthink Concept in Decision-Making

Introduction

Foremost, groupthink is a psychological feature that happens within a group of persons where they crave for harmony as well as compliance with the results of the group in an irrational decision-making product. Group members strive to reduce disagreement among themselves and reach an agreement in a particular decision without necessarily carrying out critical evaluation of other alternative opinions. They ensure that external environment does not influence them, and therefore they try to suppress dissenting viewpoints. Besides, groupthink requires people to avoid coming up with controversial solutions or issues. Borkowski (2016) argues that groupthink is a construct of social psychology, but it immensely impacts literature in organizational theory, management, and political science fields. Mostly, groupthink occurs within natural groups in the community like, for instance, benefits of team working versus work conducted by an individual. Groupthink concept was used to explain numerous faulty decision in the 20th century.

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Groupthink is effective because decision making tends to ensure set goals of an organization are achieved despite that it takes quite long. The concept allows good communication because every individual in a group is given a chance to provide his or her own opinion. Groupthink ensures the general agreement is reached during decision making in an organization. The concept is described as putting effective decision making second to unity and cohesiveness. Groupthink makes members of an organization exert more pressure upon few members with dissenting opinions to support the views of the majority. Shafritz & Jang (2015) admits that groupthink is effective in decision making because it adopts the views of the majority. The concepts allow group members to think critically before making decisions on a particular issue or problem. The phenomenon of groupthink addresses all the eventualities that may be brought about by the decision made by group members. Groupthink helps the dissenting members of a certain group to provide their opinion why they are not supporting the views of the majority. In a nutshell, it encourages dialogue among members thereby ensuring effective decision making.

Groupthink can be exercised in many instances in our lives. For example, group manifested itself during my career as a charge nurse in the emergency room. When I was a charge nurse in the emergency room, I used to adopt groupthink approach in dealing with issues in my department. I incessantly organized a discussion with the other staff in my department to ensure that we reach into census which decision to make. In the emergency room, we were faced with numerous challenges, and therefore groupthink was very essential to chat the way forward and address the problems amicably. Within six months, groupthink streamlined emergency room activities, and we could ethically serve patients in a timely and convenient way. Further, groupthink immensely influenced decision making in emergency room department. For example, groupthink ensured every staff member supports key decisions in the department.

Conclusion

Decision making was so fast because we could discuss how to deal with problems associated with our department as a group. The concept of groupthink in decision making reduced some of the errors committed in our department due to decisions made by individuals. Besides, emergency room department experienced positive transformation since groupthink provided decisions that improved service delivery. My team was dedicated to making decisions that were aimed at increasing safety of patients and reduction of deaths resulting from staff ignorance. Therefore, groupthink is very essential in organizations since it improves the process of decision making among group members.

References

Borkowski, N. (2016). Organizational behavior, theory, and design in health care (3rd ed.). Boston: Jones & Bartlett.

Shafritz, J. M., Ott, J. S., & Jang, Y. S. (2015). Classics of organization theory. Cengage Learning.