How to mitigate groupthink in workshops
Published August 10, 2025
Groupthink happens when your group settles on ideas too quickly. The group coalesces around a set of ideas before they've considered the broader landscape or alternative solutions.
During the early parts of design thinking or collaborative workshops, groupthink works against the divergent thinking you want to facilitate. Instead of generating many diverse options (diverging), the group jumps straight to agreement (converging).
Why groupthink hurts your workshop
Teams overlook creative ideas
Groupthink stifles creativity and prevents diverse ideas from emerging. When groupthink dominates, teams overlook interesting insights or innovative solutions and end up with mediocre ideas.
Participants self-censor
Groupthink feels comfortable and harmonious to participants. Everyone is agreeing. This perception of agreement causes people to self-censor. They don't they lack ideas. They don't want to disrupt the apparent consensus.
Groupthink creates the illusion of unanimity because the group assumes quiet members agree. This false sense of agreement masks underlying concerns and alternative perspectives.
Teams settle for mediocre ideas
In addition, time pressure can accelerate groupthink. Teams may rush toward the first acceptable solution rather than exploring alternatives that may be better.
The facilitators challenge
Spotting and stopping groupthink means disrupting what feels like smooth progress. To break through groupthink, you introduce friction into a process that seems to be flowing smoothly. This can feel counterintuitive but is essential for better outcomes.
You can structure workshop activities to mitigate the effects of groupthink. The following five approaches help teams move past their first ideas, be more creative, and counter self-censorship.
Five facilitation approaches to counter groupthink
1. Silent Generation Before Discussion
Start idea generation with participants working individually in silence. Have participants write sticky notes online or in person—maybe even contribute anonymously—before any group discussion begins. This prevents early voices from anchoring the group's thinking and ensures quieter members contribute their perspectives before social dynamics take hold. Two methods:
A. Silent brainwriting → 1-2-4-All
How: Give 3–5 minutes of solo writing, then discuss in pairs, then fours, then share to the whole group. Capture all ideas before any open discussion.
Why it works: Prevents early anchoring by a loud voice and normalizes dissent in smaller, safer steps.
Reference: Liberating Structures: 1-2-4-All
B. Nominal Group Technique (NGT) with private ranking
How: Individuals generate ideas silently, then round-robin share one idea at a time (no debate). Clarify only. Finish with private, criteria-based scoring or dot-voting.
Why it works: Equal airtime and private evaluation reduce conformity pressure.
Reference: "How to use the nominal group and Delphi techniques"
2. Structured Devil's Advocate Feedback
Formally assign rotating "challenger" roles that ask specific participants to question assumptions, poke holes in ideas, or argue alternative viewpoints. Make this an explicit, rotating responsibility so dissent feels legitimate and expected rather than obstructive. One method:
A. Rotating Devil’s Advocate / Red-Team moment
How: Assign a rotating participant (or small “red team”) to challenge assumptions for each proposal. Timebox a short rebuttal window (e.g., 5 minutes) before moving on.
Why it works: Makes dissent a role, not a social risk, and surfaces blind spots.
Reference: The Red Team Handbook
3. Anonymous Feedback
Build in anonymous input mechanisms where people can post concerns or alternative ideas without attribution. This gives people safe channels to express dissent without social risk. Two methods:
A. Anonymous Critique
How: Participants brainstorm to generate feedback for an idea independently in private (like Silent Brainwriting above). They then share feedback anonymously with the group or others.
Why it works: Anonymous feedback produces more diverse and dissenting feedback.
B. Pros and Cons
How: For each idea, have participants each write a "pro", a reason why the idea is a good idea. Second, have participants each write down a "con", a reason why the idea won't work or won't work well. Share the pros and cons for each idea. Adjust the ideas to make them better.
Why it works: You end up with a list of ideas that have been iterated and improved on. Each of these iterated ideas is ready to be explored further.
Reference: “5 Strategies for Leading a High-Impact Team”
4. Divergent Process Design
Structure specific activities that force divergent thinking and reward quantity and variety of ideas. This helps teams explore broader solution frames and develop alternative ideas. Two methods:
A. Creative Matrix
How: Make a poster showing a large grid (max. 5 x 5 cells). Designate columns as categories related to people. Designate rows as categories for enabling solutions. Brainstorm ideas for each area of the grid on the matrix.
Why it works: This promotes divergent thinking and helps participants think of alternative ideas.
Reference: LUMA Institute: Creative Matrix
B. Alternative Worlds
How: Explore how a successful organization or group outside your domain would approach a given issue. For example, you might ask how would Apple approach this problem?
Why it works: You get to explore the problem or solution area from a fresh perspective helping you think of alternative ideas.
Reference: LUMA Institute: Alternative Worlds
5. External Perspective Integration
Your team has blind spots. They're solving problems from inside their own bubble, which means they're missing insights that could lead to breakthrough solutions. Diverse perspectives improve creative output, but you don't always have diverse people in the room. So design activities that force your group to step outside their familiar ways of thinking. Two methods:
A. Stakeholder, User, and Expert Presentations
How: Bring stakeholders directly into your workshop or provide customer interviews, expert input, or brief presentations from people who experience your problem.
Why it works: Presentations from people who experience your problem differently will shift how your team frames the challenge.
B. External Group Prompts
How: Try prompts like "How would Starbucks approach this library problem?" or "What would our most frustrated customer say about this solution?"
Why it works: These questions force participants to temporarily adopt different viewpoints and surface assumptions they didn't even know they had.
Conclusion: Building Your Anti-Groupthink Toolkit
Groupthink happens in most workshops. But you can design activities that prevent this. Remember that apparent harmony and quick consensus aren't always signs of success. They may signal that your group has settled too early and missed better solutions.
The five approaches above give you specific techniques to combat groupthink:
Silent generation gets authentic input before social dynamics take over
Structured dissent makes it safe to challenge ideas
Anonymous feedback creates risk-free channels for different perspectives
Divergent process design pushes teams beyond their first thoughts
External perspectives break groups out of their bubble
You don't need all five. Start by experimenting with one or two that feel most comfortable for your facilitation style. Silent generation techniques like 1-2-4-All are particularly beginner-friendly and immediately effective.
Remember, as you implement these methods, introducing productive friction can feel awkward. Your participants might seem frustrated when you slow things down or ask them to consider opposing views. That discomfort signals you're doing what's needed. These approaches prevent premature convergence and open space for better ideas to emerge.
Your job isn't to make everyone feel good in the moment. It's to guide them toward solutions they couldn't reach on their own.
Trust the process, even when it feels counterintuitive. The most innovative solutions come from moments when you push groups beyond their comfort zones and force them to think differently.
Start with one technique. Watch how it changes your group dynamics. The workshops that feel a bit messy and challenging in the moment are usually the ones that produce breakthrough thinking.
Next: Critique people’s ideas for better brainstorms
One of brainstorming’s cardinal rules is not to criticize anyone’s ideas. And that’s probably wrong.
