Crossrail - or the Elizabeth Line as it’s now known – opened its platforms to the public in 2022. Linking forty stations (ten of them new) between Berkshire, south London and Essex it was heralded as a huge engineering success with 200 million passenger journeys expected every year.
But behind the scenes it didn’t always run smoothly, leading to it opening three and a half years late and four billion pounds over budget. (1)
In 2024 Matthew Symes was appointed to lead an independent review which shared the lessons learned about Crossrail’s sponsorship and governance arrangements. Of the nine key learnings he identified, one major challenge was to ‘evolve the methods of project assurance to cut through groupthink’.
But what is groupthink and why is it such a peril to the success of change programmes?
Defining groupthink
Yale University Research Psychologist Irving Janis defined the groupthink concept ‘as a mode of thinking that people in a group engage in where striving for unanimity overrides the motivation to realistically appraise alternative courses of action’. (2)
Put another way ‘it’s when a group of well-intentioned people make irrational or non-optimal decisions spurred by the urge to conform, or the belief that dissent is impossible or when group members value harmony and coherence above critical thought’. (3)
So, what does this mean for programme teams? Quite simply groupthink can lead to bad decisions, not addressing risks, failed programmes, spiralling costs and disenchanted employees and stakeholders.
Imagine this…
At Marlowe we’re huge advocates of getting to know your team members, especially when a new project starts. You may not know your colleagues and it’s important to learn how they work, what their preferences are and therefore how you’ll work together to achieve optimum success. After all, you’re all there to achieve the same goal.
And it’s great that everyone is getting on well and they’re happy in their work.
But then you find yourself being in a meeting where you fundamentally disagree with a decision that everyone else is agreeing to. So, what do you do?
1) Speak up and share your concern even if it makes you and the team uncomfortable.
2) Say nothing to keep the peace and a harmonious team even though you know your concern is valid.
Option 1 is the right answer but too often option 2 is the approach. Everyone is invested in the team, they’re getting on. Even if you did say something would you feel that it could impact how people work with you?
Back at Crossrail this is exactly what happened. While the company had a “can-do positivity” which meant high employee engagement it unintentionally meant risks were not being raised, especially from junior team members but also from the ‘project representatives’ embedded in the business by the government sponsors.
The report suggested that the culture of ‘confidence and success’ had taken hold even though the sponsors had become worried about the reality of delivering the programme, meaning the collective group became less receptive to challenge.
Avoiding groupthink – the importance of sponsorship, programme culture and assurance
It would be great if a programme’s goals, milestones and budgets all ran to plan but it’s rare they do! There are many reasons why the goalposts will shift, be that regulatory, budgetary, external change or maybe a change of leadership. Or simply, what seemed to be the right approach at the start of the programme no longer is.
A programme lead needs to be able to adapt to these changes. They need to create a culture where people feel confident and comfortable in raising risks, asking questions and making suggestions for improvement. In addition, they then need to manage other stakeholder expectations if a change is needed. This isn’t easy so it’s important that the leader is adequately skilled to do this or brings in support to help build the team’s effectiveness and programme culture.
We also advocate the use of assurance reviews to avoid groupthink. While you may have the best intentions of doing programme reviews internally they may only scratch the surface of the underlying challenges that are not being surfaced. Running longer, more in-depth reviews – either applied to an entire programme or at any individual project stage – can serve as a highly useful technique to gather greater insight to mitigate risks and identify key improvement areas – all of which will give you a much bigger chance of success.
Conclusion
The success of your programme is reliant on an empowering culture where people can openly discuss challenges, yet we know that once you’re embedded in a programme it can be difficult to raise your head above the parapet when you’re so focused on delivering the end goal. That’s why it’s worth considering appointing a third-party who can bring fresh ideas and questions to the programme to help avoid groupthink.
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About Marlowe
At Marlowe we partner with organisations to deliver large scale, complex transformation and change. We deliver business change solutions, change capability, assurance, training, leadership effectiveness and cultural change.
Our focus is on your people to ensure your change is delivered practically, successfully and sustainably. Please contact us if you would like to know more about delivering exceptional business change.