A young, talented engineer accepted the second job of his career. It was with a company renowned for its progressive culture. No more authoritarian leadership, everyone’s on a team, titles are not important, creativity and freedom are important corporate values. He was very excited about the opportunity. He would have a chance to try out some of his new ideas without worrying about some tyrant telling him to get back to work and stop bothering him with crazy plans.
Sure enough, much of what he had been told about the new company was true. Titles were not important. People did believe in teamwork and the atmosphere was very informal. People had a lot of flexibility and there were many learning opportunities. After a few weeks of learning his way around, he saw an opportunity to make an improvement in the manufacturing process. It was a simple change that involved moving an inspection point two stations earlier in the process. He had seen this done dozens of times with great success: fewer errors, less scrap, etc. He told one of his colleagues about his idea and he was very positive. He said, “Bring it up at the team meeting. That’s how we go about implementing changes around here.”
Excited about the opportunity to make a good first impression on his teammates, he prepared a presentation outlining the change and the steps that would need to be taken to implement the new process. Since the benefits of the new process seemed evident, he was confident that his proposal would be accepted with enthusiasm. He was shocked at what then happened at the team meeting. His proposal was met with a wave of resistance. “We’ve seen that idea before. We tried that in 1978. Outsiders don’t understand our culture. You need to work here longer before you understand how we do things.” Even his colleague who was so positive before said, “I didn’t fully understand the implications when you first told me about it.”
Stunned and discouraged, he left the meeting and went back to work. He was so shaken by the incident that he started to second-guess his own perception. “Am I really that far off the mark? Are they right? Is this really a stupid idea?” He didn’t think so but the doubt remained and that inhibited his willingness to speak up at future meetings.
We all like to think of ourselves as independent. Thinking for oneself is considered an attribute of maturity, adulthood. We shouldn’t be swayed by others unless their arguments have true merit. But, the force of peer pressure is great and few of us have never been tempted to “go along” with the crowd. Most of our examples of conformity come from our glimpses of teenage hairstyles or $100 ripped jeans. But, the consequences of conformity in organizations can have serious consequences.
Organizations are systems
To function properly, systems need input from the outside world. Otherwise, they become closed systems and are subject to failure.
So what happened to this young engineer? It is not uncommon for companies with a strong culture to put a great deal of pressure on people to conform, even one like the company above that espouses creativity, teamwork, and openness. Strong cultures can be very good. They create a sense of purpose, have many shared values, and can become very robust in the face of adversity. People pull together and help the company survive and thrive. But, such cultures must be managed carefully.
If “shared values” become extreme, they look more like obedience than true values. If team members feel too much pressure to conform, you lose their creativity, their ability to innovate, to be fully engaged. The psychologist Solomon Asch performed a series of classic studies on conformity (Asch, S. E. (1956). Studies of independence and conformity: A minority of one against a unanimous majority. Psychological Monographs, 70.
In his studies, he had participants in small groups compare the lengths of lines (like those in the diagram). They were asked which of the three lines on the right is the same as the one on the left? The correct answers were, for the most part, obvious. When the participants were alone, they almost always gave the correct answer. But, in small groups when the rest of the group (confederates of the experimenter) gave the incorrect response, 75% of the respondents sometimes conformed and gave the same incorrect response. Thirty-five percent conformed every time the group made an incorrect response. When asked why they did it, some responded that they didn’t want to rock the boat, or that they wanted to please the experimenter. But about one third of them said they questioned their own perception. They became unsure about their own initial judgment.
This experiment has been repeated many times with similar results. Morris, W., & Miller, R. (1975). The effects of consensus-breaking and consensus-pre-empting partners of reduction in conformity. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 11, 215-223, Neto, F. (1995). ‘Conformity and independence revisited’. Social Behavior and Personality, 23 (3), 217-222 Individual conformity to (incorrect) group consensus by Lisa Wade Jun 11, 2008.
People conform
All of us will conform sometimes and some of us will conform almost all of the time. The cost of this in an organization can be great. One of the most important elements of any system is the presence of valid information. If members of the organization are withholding information or, worse, giving false information such as going along with a proposal even though they believe it is wrong, it can create lots of problems. Good proposals are ignored, creativity is suppressed, there is little innovation, people stop thinking for themselves, disasters happen (Think Morton Thiokol and the O-rings). How do you prevent this from happening in your organization? How can you design leadership training that will address this issue?
Part of all leadership training includes a healthy dose of education about the company’s culture. That is as it should be. But, there should always be some safeguards installed. A truly healthy approach to leadership training in a company with a strong culture should always include:
- Clear communication about the company’s culture and what it means. Included in that conversation should be encouragement to challenge the status quo if you see something that is not working or something that could be done better.
- Strong listening skill development. Good listening, especially Active Listening, can overcome much of the reluctance many team members may have about speaking up.
- Commitment to win/win conflict resolution. Teaching people that conflict is not a bad thing. You should teach people that if you feel pressured, you are empowered to pursue an idea and explore novel ways to resolve conflicts. They also need to learn the skills and methods for doing so.
- Teach people how to express their needs constructively. Clear I-Messages can also have a liberating impact. They give participants a means for speaking up with less risk.
- Follow-up coaching and facilitation. Having people within the system to whom you can go without fear of reprisal or criticism can have a profound effect. If you feel pressured by your peers or leaders, you have another pathway to test your ideas and be heard.
Don’t assume that everyone in your organization is willing and able to speak his or her mind. Make sure that you have created a culture in which that is, indeed, expected and encouraged. If your company has an especially strong culture, that becomes even more urgent.
So who’s doing this? Why, everybody’s doing it. It’s just our way.