RTO's Hidden Cost: Groupthink

Key Takeaways

• Return-to-office mandates risk fostering groupthink—the exact opposite of the innovation they claim to encourage

  
  

• True innovation flourishes when diverse perspectives collide, not when homogeneous teams cluster in single locations

  
  

• While corporate giants enforce RTO, a wave of hybrid-working entrepreneurs is poised to unleash unprecedented innovation

With the latest return-to-office mandates bringing yet more employees in-house, I again have an uneasy feeling. Until recently, I couldn’t quite figure out what was bothering me.

Groupthink: the practice of thinking or making decisions as a group in a way that discourages creativity or individual responsibility.  

Literally, the opposite of the stated goals of RTO.

Serendipity has a Place but isn’t Place-based

Yes, the serendipitous engagement of employees with disparate responsibilities can encourage creative thinking. The downside is the myopia of a (often homogeneous) group working in a single location, living similar lifestyles, and sharing similar concerns.

Ironically, the most famous examples of serendipity sparking innovation are of a lone inventor in a lab – not of a confab around a water cooler. Governments incidentally have been responsible for some of the most egregious examples of groupthink, from the Bay of Pigs to the Challenger disaster to COVID-19.

Think “innovation,” and our minds tend to head for a dot on the map in Northern California.   Yet, globally dispersed scientists and engineers working remotely developed world-changing technologies- for instance, the internet.

In the second half of the 20th century, this widely scattered group brought different ways of looking at problems - influenced by their life experiences - and brought on a wave of innovation.  Easing their ability to work together was considered a good idea at the time.

It’s a key reason the internet was invented! Which makes Google’s RTO decision even more ironic.

Collaboration in Context

There is most certainly value in the exchange of ideas in a single location, and, admittedly, some jobs don’t lend themselves to multiple locations, let alone work from home. To a large extent, though, the single location is of perhaps more value when troubleshooting than it is for ideas.

The serendipitous exchange that starts with “Why don’t we do it this way?” and ends with a better product is invaluable. However, good troubleshooters tend to reach out naturally to co-workers, colleagues, family, friends, and passing strangers. It’s not like there aren’t phones, text, Zoom, or countless other ways to connect.

I’ve worked at HQ, in satellite offices, and remotely – mostly hybrid for the sole reason that I was on the road when I wasn’t in the office.  Hybrid work marketing solutions were a requirement, not an option. One that built a billion-dollar brand.

I think we’ve seen quite enough groupthink in the homogenous world of marketing strategy and product development. Product launches and updates from tech companies have been routinely derided on social media and met with confusion by the product’s primary users (looking at you, Windows update).

 In reality, successful ideas are far more likely to emerge from the free exchange of ideas among an assortment of people than from like-minded individuals clustered around a table - hobbled by groupthink.

If you need any convincing of the hazards, think about the groupthink that “a pandemic wouldn’t happen in our lifetimes” that left most of the developed world unprepared for COVID-19. This, even though in 2020, there were survivors of the post-World War I Influenza Pandemic (Spanish flu) still alive.

 It turns out this was just one of many crises influenced by groupthink. (The title of this paper—Groupthink: Collective Delusions in Organizations and Markets—is particularly striking.)

Avoid Groupthink with a Motley Crew

Avoiding groupthink means diversifying those engaged in the process in every way feasible: by age, gender, income, political party, ways of problem-solving, lifestyle, and – location. RTO forcefully homogenizes the organization, and I worry that innovation will suffer.

 Pre-pandemic groupthink in corporate marketing, my field, was rampant, ironically driven by long commutes and long hours that keep marketers trapped in ivory towers. Ideas have become more innovative and, importantly, more practical, now when part of the team is hybrid or remote – a function of diverse experience.

Again and again, studies show that when everyone in the room shares similar perspectives, not only is creativity stifled, but the risk of reinforcing poor ideas increases dramatically.  Innovation bubbles up when viewpoints shaped by different experiences, lifestyles, and locations are given equal time.

Anything but Business as Usual

As 21st-century companies embrace and disparage remote and hybrid workers, it seems clear that corporate philosophy is much more motivated by leaders’ own work styles (culture, life stage, etc.) than by any proven management theory.

On the bright side, the wave of entrepreneurship unleashed by the pandemic is breaking records and showing no signs of stopping. And there is where we find the kind of diversity that sparks innovation as, much to the surprise of the government record-keepers, Americans of all kinds have started their own business. 

So. while large organizations shoot themselves in the foot with RTO, a new wave of innovation is poised to emerge from a mostly hybrid, or work-from-home, wildly diverse group of new entrepreneurs.

Maryanne Conlin is an award-winning, classically trained marketer and founder of NeuroD Marketing. She's worked with leading Fortune 500 brands and helped over 500 clients build their businesses strategically for sustainable growth. An expert speaker and writer on targeting & positioning, she runs workshops and teaches internationally.

Contact me to learn how to optimize your marketing strategies and avoid groupthink