The reading passage states the effectiveness of the group decision making. However, the professor casts doubt on this point and supports his viewpoint listing disadvantages of the groupthink.
To begin with, the article says that many organization assemble groups of people from diverse educational background and different horizon to find the most effective solution to their problems. In contrast, the lecturer affirms that decisions made by a group is mostly irrational and leads to a disaster. He posits that each individual tries to confirm his approach and the outcome may not satisfy the expectations. Moreover, the viewpoints of some people, who will raise their objective opinions, will be ignored and rejected.
In addition, the passage asserts that the groupthink will provide the opportunity to exchange ideas and thoughts, hone one’s skills and view the situation from a different angle. Moreover, according to the reading group is more likely to take responsibilities and nobody will takes the risks of making wrong decisions alone. On the contrary, the professor says that sometimes the groups start to overstate their abilities and think that they are invulnerable. The lecturer posits that they will have more advantages dealing with an individual. However, later they will fail to contribute everything they are capable of doing and will not accomplish to achieve their goals.
Finally, the article asserts that the groupthink will foster an environment that cultivates success an encouragement and all the group members will be encouraged to perform at an exceptional level. However, according to the lecture, the leaders in the group will reject any decisions that do not fit their needs. He illustrates his point by the example of the fiasco of Ford company. He affirmed that in late 1950s the new automobile design failed as it was approved only by the leaders of the group without considering the opinion of other members.
Yes, Mr Luschen. And I have a question for you. I need more resources to practice my listening, reading and integrated writing. Could you send me links where I could take tests on these sections? Thanks you in advance.
Hi Ani, I think you have done a pretty good job with this one, though this probably isn’t your best. You got all the points and secondary details, but your understanding or communication of the lecture’s viewpoints did not always seem 100% accurate. Still, I think this would rate a 4.5 out of 5.
The script for the reading passage:
Groupthink
When private institutions or government agencies need to solve problems or develop new processes they assemble groups of people to work on the task. The advantages of teams composed of many individuals over individuals working alone are several. First of all, teams of individuals can pool their intellectual resources in order to arrive at superior decisions through focused attention to the issue at hand. Group discussion leads to a more varied and in-depth approach to problem solving and idea creation. Furthermore, group discussion leads to a broad exchange of knowledge and information since groups include individuals from different parts and levels of an organization. These individuals tend to bring with them a large variety of skills, interests, and background knowledge. Often, team discussion will bring about a relevant solution, which is unlikely to be made by a lone individual. The reason for this is that a person working in isolation may be afraid of taking responsibility for making a decision whose outcome is uncertain. In a team of individuals, however, the responsibility is spread around so that no particular member can be held responsible if the decision leads to failure.
Group discussion also has the advantage of encouraging motivation in team members. The effect of working with colleagues can increase enthusiasm and provide the necessary ambience for the brainstorming activities essential to good decision-making. Finally, each individual can benefit because he or she can learn new negotiation and management skills and discover personal strengths and aptitudes through the process of achieving worthwhile goals.
The script for the listening passage:
All right. You’ve looked at the effectiveness of working groups. Now, I want to talk about disadvantages of group decision-making. There’s a lot of research on what I believe Irving Janis termed as groupthink. This term refers to the phenomenon of group members coming up with disastrous decisions.
One disadvantage of groups is that individuals may try to conform with what that person thinks are the feelings of the group as a whole. The decisions that are made when all members conform can be very irrational. Now, if you think about it . . . when each individual is trying to conform, the outcome may be very unsatisfactory. Often, individuals who raise objections are ignored. There are many examples of objections raised by research teams being ignored by management’s tendency to groupthink.
Another disadvantage is that team group members often start believing that they are invulnerable. You may remember the incident of some law enforcement agents failing to catch an escaped prisoner because they assumed they couldn’t be outsmarted by one individual.
Besides the feeling of invulnerability and the pressure to conform, another disadvantage is group members reassuring each other that their decision is correct. The group ignores anything that doesn’t fit their vision. An example of this is the Ford Edsel fiasco in the late nineteen-fifties. A car meant to open a radical new chapter in automobile design was a marketing disaster. The public simply didn’t like it. This failure nearly bankrupted the Ford Motor Company. Here, the committee members clearly were victims of groupthink.