Why do good people go along with bad decisions?
In late 1959, Chevrolet introduced a car that Ralph Nadar would famously declare was “Unsafe at Any Speed,” as he titled his 1965 book. According to Nadar, the engineers who built the Corvair knew its rear-engine, rear-wheel drive design had stability issues and that these problems were compounded by cost-cutting measures required to make the car profitable. When the engineers were asked if they would have brought the car to market if they had been running the company, to a person, they said no. Yet, as a group, they allowed a dangerous car to be sold.
On January 28, 1986, technical people working on the space shuttle Challenger warned that the O-rings on the solid rocket booster could fail in cold temperatures. Despite record low temperatures, management went ahead with the launch, and as a result seven astronauts lost their lives when the Challenger broke apart just 73 seconds after liftoff.
More recently, numerous issues have come to light regarding quality lapses at Boeing. With senior management emphasizing short-term profitability over engineering excellence, some people kept quiet for fear of losing their jobs while others would only raise their concerns anonymously. And again management turned a blind eye to the problems.
Would the people involved in these infamous decisions have acted differently if they were held personally responsible for the consequences instead of the company? It seems that good people will support something they think is wrong to further group harmony. Being on the outside makes dissenters potential targets of the group; the old adage of “go along to get along” is alive and well,
If your group is allowing or supporting bad decisions, consider ways you can influence them to reexamine the issue. Sometimes asking a “what if” question spurs people to think differently. For example, if an engineer at Chevrolet had been asked what they would say to their mother if she was thinking about buying a Corvair, perhaps they would see the issue in a new light. What would you say to your children if you gave the go-ahead for the Challenger to launch? If you knew about quality lapses, would you be comfortable knowing your loved ones were on a Boeing plane? The pull of groupthink can be powerful, but asking questions offers a new perspective and a path to different decisions.