The Dog Ate It *
There’s a familiar explanation that gets wheeled out when things go badly wrong in organisations: “It was group think.” The grown-up version of “the dog ate my homework.”
How convenient. Because it suggests something almost inevitable. A collective blind spot. No one saw it coming.
Except, in my experience, that’s not how organisations work at all.
Dissent is always there. Someone asks, “What if?” Someone says, “I’m not convinced.” Someone points out the risk, the flaw, the thing that might just unravel the whole plan. There is always a dissenting voice.
Often more than one. Occasionally awkward. Sometimes persistent. And yes, sometimes it was me.
Group think, as a description, just doesn’t fit. Because it assumes everyone thought the same. They didn’t. Remarkable how often the dog turns up after the event—and never during the meeting.
And here’s the thing—you rarely hear people inside the organisation say it. They have a much better list of explanations.
The oil crisis. Covid. An unpredictable US president. Trade unions being “unreasonable.” The uniqueness of their workforce. The sheer scale of the challenge. A perfect storm, apparently.
Everything, in other words, that couldn’t possibly have been foreseen or controlled.
It’s usually the observers, commentators, auditors and inspectors who reach for “group think.” Neat. Tidy. And safely distant from the decisions that were actually made.
Trouble is, it has the same feel as an old excuse: the dog ate my homework.
Because when you look a bit closer, the homework was there all along. The risks were raised. The questions were asked. The warnings were given.
They just didn’t change the decision.
Everyone gets to sound wise after the event.
This isn’t about a lack of different views. It’s about what leaders choose to do with the views they are given.
Do they listen? Do they challenge? Do they change course?
Or do they press on regardless—and hope for the best?
Because if someone said, “This might go wrong,” and nothing changed, then let’s be honest about what failed.
It wasn’t the group.
It was the leadership.
And no matter how many times you repeat it, “group think” is still just a more grown-up way of saying:
the dog ate my homework.
Blair Mcpherson former Director author and blogger blairmcpherson.co.uk
* Can you find the hidden message ?
