The Importance of Dissent18
As destructive as some of these intellectual conflicts were, repression of dissent is even more costly. We saw this in the cases of corporate corruption in the 1990s (e.g., Adelphia, Enron, Tyco, WorldCom) when Boards of Directors approved executive wishes with little or no discussion.
We saw it in the planning for the Bay of Pigs in which fear of being labeled “soft” on communism prevented anyone expressing doubts about the operation, leading to disaster.These “cascades” occur when people follow the lead of a few early proponents. Christianity and Islam are examples but so are fascism, witch-hunts, and teen fads. That is, people can just as easily converge on harmful or erroneous instead of beneficial or correct decisions. When early leaders are articulate, charismatic, and confident, they frame and control the debate. Cascades begin when groupthink and peer pressure repress independent judgment. Sometimes, particularly when individuals can leave the group, schism occurs, as seen in so many theological disputes.
We often admire the courageous lone dissenter like Henry Fonda in Twelve Angry Men. Dissenters are not always right, but creating an atmosphere in which they feel comfortable speaking their minds is the best device we have to identify the flaws in any idea. GE President Jack Welch (Wall Street Journal 28 October 2004) wrote that whenever he faced a crisis he made sure to assemble “a group of the smartest, gutsiest people I could find at any level from within the company and sometimes without [and] make sure everyone in the room came at the problem from a different angle.” These sessions were contentious, but they surfaced meaningful questions, challenged assumptions, and led to better decisions. Objections can be major or minor, probable or improbable, fixable or fatal.
Arthur Schlessinger reported that a single dissenter could have prevented the Bay of Pigs disaster.
That dissenter might have been Arthur Goldberg, Kennedy’s Postmaster General, had he been included in the group making the decision. Why include the Postmaster General in a group making a major political and military decision? Goldberg was the only member of the Kennedy cabinet with direct experience of such operations as a member of OSS during World War II (personal conversation). In all these cases, dissent was stifled, consequences were not thought through, red flags were discounted, alternatives were not considered, objectives were unclear, risks were ignored (Esser 1998, Janis 1982, Petersen, 1998, Ryan 1974, Turner, 1998).A surprisingly large proportion of the boards of corporations and national cabinets have 12-15 members. Teachers asked the best class size to promote discussion will come up with similar numbers. Smaller groups seem insufficiently diverse and larger ones silence dissent and promote conformity. Simplifying a task, assigning self-confident people with records of decisiveness and achievement, providing resources such as staff to explore alternatives thoroughly, and putting multiple teams to work on the same problem all encourage diversity and dissent. Strong norms against leaking encourage frank discussions. Making individual rewards, economic or otherwise, dependent on the success of a group decision can counteract social pressure to conform. Finally, temporarily dispensing with rank, as World War II British scientists and military did in “Sunday Soviets” to find quick fixes to problems faced by the troops, can contribute to successful problem solving (Jones, 1978).