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The Groupthink Pandemic
The Groupthink Pandemic
Groupthink is all around us. Decision-making in government, in the media and at work. It’s slowly killing the world.
In the background of the most important events, the Covid-19 response and increasing tension and conflict in the world, it might be worth looking through some of this in a bit more detail.
I’ve experienced groupthink working for large organisations, most notably in my last job. We were tasked with investigating and solving complex problems. Some technical expertise helped but was not crucial to the role.
Critical thinking and balancing evidence and differing viewpoints was key.
Yet the organisation decided that this was no longer required and changed the whole operating model to a one-size fits all type of call-centre. This new high-risk approach was recommended to us by the outside consultants Price Waterhouse Coopers (PWC) who were clueless about our business.
Those of us who were experienced in the role argued that the model wouldn’t work. But the organisation ploughed on regardless. It was obvious from day one that the financials didn’t stack up which they tried to deny and later concealed.
The executive largely ignored our concerns to start but then paid limited lip-service when the wheels started to come off. Anyway, in the end they offered us redundancy while employing fresh university graduates to replace us. As far as I know the place is still in denial and heading down the pan.
Groupthink is described as follows:
Groupthink is a term first used in 1972 by social psychologist Irving L. Janis that refers to a psychological phenomenon in which people strive for consensus within a group. In many cases, people will set aside their own personal beliefs or adopt the opinion of the rest of the group.
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The real enemy of the people
The real enemy of the people
“What’s it like being a traitor?” John Sweeney being just as subtle, unbiased and classy as you expect from the BBC Panorama team.
We are all familiar with the terms ‘conspiracy theorist’ and ‘apologist’ used by the establishment and media to smear independent journalists, experts and other commentators. For some time this has been particularly evident in the debates we see over the Middle East wars and Russia. It’s common knowledge that people who use these terms can’t argue rationally so resort to smears.
Western government support for terrorism, staged events and spreading disinformation via groups such as Integrity Initiative has come under closer scrutiny recently. As more revelations of wrongdoing by our governments and misreporting by our media have been exposed, the censorship and smears against independent media has intensified.
A DISTURBING NEW RHETORIC
I’m sure some of us have noticed that the language used has been ramped up yet again. I came across one example recently of someone promoting the anti-Russia narrative on Twitter making an analogy between one researcher’s legitimate investigation and criticism of Integrity Initiative and the actions of the World War II traitor, ‘Lord Haw-Haw’. And I think many readers will be familiar with this post from John Sweeney of the BBC and clip from his programme on Sputnik News.
Here’s our @bbcnewsnight film on Sputnik News in UK. With tensions between Russian and UK growing I was on my diplomatic best behaviour. 1st Q: “what’s it like being a traitor?” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cxWv7yYhkf4 …
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-46904935 …2489:32 AM – Jan 17, 2019Twitter Ads info and privacyFacebook targets Russian fake news sourcesThe pages campaigned for months creating and sharing stories that were fake, said Facebook.bbc.co.uk
To call someone a traitor is probably the most serious accusation you can make so let’s look at its meaning:
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