The causes of groupthink are many and diverse. The results, unfortunately, are more uniform - and nearly all bad. Groupthink is decision-making poison. It excludes consideration of useful information and analysis required for making good decisions. This can lead to disaster. For example one study showed that in 80% of helicopter accidents, someone aboard saw a problem but thought it wasn't his place to say anything about it!*

Two events from the Kennedy administration in the U.S. provide an excellent study of both the causes of groupthink and how to avoid it.* The Bay of Pigs invasion was largely the result of groupthink and turned into one of the worst foreign policy disasters in U.S. history. On the other hand, the Cuban missile crisis was treated much better, with specific attention to avoidance of groupthink. As a result, the missile crisis was settled with no shots fired.

Groupthink appeared in the run-up to the Bay of Pigs invasion in the following manners:

1. The president was so charismatic that his staff wanted to follow him and do what he wanted. Staff members did not feel free to express opinions perceived contrary to what Kennedy wanted. Of course they weren't always sure exactly what he wanted so this at times turned into supporting guesses about what he wanted.

2. Outside experts were excluded, ostensibly to protect secrecy (which was already compromised). No independent viewpoints sought or allowed. The CIA had intelligence that contradicted the beliefs on which the decisions were based, but that information never made it to the decision-makers.

3. Limited purviews: Schlesinger, for example, felt that as an academic he would be presumptuous to bring up his concerns.

4. Illusion of invulnerability. The feeling was,"We are smart and we are automatically moral. Therefore we will succeed."

5. Illusion of unanimity. "Let's all support the president!" Staff members regarded it as important to be unanimous, to the point that they supressed their thoughts to achieve that unanimity.

6. Self-appointed mindguards. For example, Robert Kennedy told Schlesinger that everyone should get behind the president.

All that together added up to an apparently unanimous decision to carry out an action that failed miserably. And contrary to the working assumption, there was no way to blame it on renegade Cuban exiles, the whole world knew that the U.S. was behind the invasion.

It is impossible to know what would have

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