Organizational Behavior

Organizational Behavior
The major theme of this fictional case is groupthink[1] ( It describes situations in which group pressures for conformity deter the group from critically appraising unusual, minority, or unpopular views. It is a disease that attacks many groups and can dramatically hinder or deter their performance to a greater extent ) with a more general focus on the group decision-making[2]. The case actually explains the situation in which a team having been formed by the higher management at an advertising firm. The purpose of the team was to develop a commercial advertisement for one of company's major clients. A member of the group Mr. Conner takes up the challenge of becoming the team leader and parts his opinion rather quickly. His opinion right from the beginning turns out to be rather damaging. However, sticking to the norms and the group conformity the team agrees with Conner's idea. Here we see the groupthink occurring.
As the team progresses with its deliberations, Conner's idea takes strides to win all the members, implying that group-shift[3] has occurred as well. Group-shift can be viewed as actually a special case of groupthink. The decision of the group reflects the dominant decision-making norm that develops during the group's discussion. Whether the shift in the group's decision is toward greater caution or more risk depends on the dominant prediscussion norm. Team is considered to be quite cohesive[4] that is to say that how much the team members are attracted to each other and are motivated to stay in that particular group. The team is reasonably autonomous and is fully in charge and responsible for managing and seeing the project of developing a commercial advertisement on targeted time. It could also be characterized as a self-managed team[5]. This is to say that the teams that are