The Group Trap
Why We Go Along With Things We Don't Actually Agree With
Groups routinely conform to norms, standards, and practices that the majority of their individual members privately reject. Everyone goes along with the thing. Almost nobody actually wants it. And the reason this keeps happening is heartbreakingly simple: each person believes — incorrectly — that everyone else is fine with it, and doesn’t want to be the one to say otherwise.
Researcher Todd Rose calls these “collective illusions.” And once you know to look for them, you see them everywhere. The meeting format everyone finds useless but nobody mentions. The family tradition that stopped being enjoyable years ago but continues because “everyone seems to enjoy it.” The workplace culture that makes people miserable, sustained by a shared silence about just how miserable it actually is.