When team members compromise to achieve goals consistent with their organization's purpose and mission statement, the effects of deindividuation are likely to be beneficial. But deindividuation can lead to abandoning fundamental individual constraints and to less careful or less safe decisions and behaviors. Deindividuation is facilitated when group members wear uniforms and cut their hair in similar ways, as in prisons, cults, monasteries, and the military. Work teams certainly don't experience this degree of deindividuation. Individuals may fail to speak up when they disagree.
Silence is interpreted as consent and leads to an illusion of group unanimity.
So here we have some of the factors that can lead groups to make riskier decisions than individuals. Social conformity and obedience also play roles. It's important to realize that these dysfunctions can occur in group meetings, and we should consider ways of overcoming them. Members of a group might be introduced to these concepts and then entertain ways to decrease their prominence. Copyright 2001 by Business News Publishing Co.