Decision Making by Boards - Taking the easy way out

Goings On LWV Issue 25 November 09

It is virtually amazing that more psychological or behavioral studies have not been made using our elderly population. Not only is the number of elderly/retired people increasing in the United States but changing social norms are moving elderly from family units into enclaves called retirement communities. Today, large numbers of senior citizens are gathered into these enclaves begging for study. And yet there are few studies on seniors which do not relate to Alzheimers or other forms of mental deterioration. One might suggest that these studies are driven by fears of what might be the future for many groups of social behaviorists. If it happens to you, it is a shame; if it might happen to ME it would be a terrible tragedy of awesome proportions. In the mean time seniors are usually kept out of sight and out of mind. If you don’t believe me, consider how often the kids drop over just to give you a hug or hang out. (Not that you would like the latter since we are all active seniors here and have our own lives that we are busily trying to live.)

And yet, here we are. We are a population at or nearing retirement age, living as active a life as our health and wealth will allow. And we have a distinct social structure. We are members of a homeowners association, governed (?) by elected boards, and managed by hired help. We are, in fact, the country in microcosm. We have self-important “leaders” who revile those who elect them. We have hired help that literally believes that what we have is theirs by right. We have elections, corruption, nasty leaders—we might as well be a separate state. And what characterizes our leaders?

Others have reported how new directors quickly get sucked into the machine and, to keep their own sense of importance, rationalize becoming just one of the good old boys. This is very much like the Stanford Prison Experiment where volunteers were put into a closed population and identified as guards or inmates. These average people started to exhibit the worst behavioral characteristics of sadistic guards and sullen or brutal inmates. The experiment got so bad, that the psychologists performing the study had to call it to a close to ensure the safety of all of the volunteers. We, of course, have directors who call us inmates, treat themselves to parties with our money, and call security when we try to protest. STANFORD, here we are, what are you waiting for?

Over the past few decades we have seen candidate after candidate call for reforms up until the moment they are installed to one of our boards. At that point they become meek as lambs, go with the flow, and soon become indistinguishable from the rest. What happened to those new ideas they had? What happened to their avowed declaration that they would shake the boat and make changes? STANFORD, we need another study. Or do we?

You all remember the Bay of Pigs debacle. Cuban nationals organized and were supposed to trained and supported by the CIA and potentially backed up by units of the US Military. The landing point on the island nation of Cuba was the Bay of Pigs. An elaborate plan to overthrow Castro and his fledgling government failed so miserably it became virtually synonymous with any kind of complete disaster and, as a US Navy Admiral I knew used to call a complete Cluster F***. I think the exact number of people killed was 118 with roughly 1200 captured in the three day debacle. Basically the US tried to deny we were involved and deserted the Cuban nationals. John Kennedy was in office 3 months. He had been present at every major meeting since the onset of planning for the Bay of Pigs. This contributed to the mentality that they did not want to displease or contradict the president. They wanted to one of the boys, Kennedy’s boys. GROUPTHINK.

The backblow from this horror story of an invasion was so bad that Kennedy could almost see his career going down the tubes right in front of his eyes. The Bay of Pigs invasion had been planned by GROUPTHINK.

Kennedy, while not my favorite president, was at least smart enough to recognize real trouble with a system of planning when he saw it. He took measures to fix the problem. He established a devil’s advocate to represent the opposition in every major operational decision made from that point on. Kennedy used mostly his brother Robert for the job but occasionally he used Ted Sorensen. The result was that the much more serious Cuban Missile Crisis exemplifies the success of strategies designed to combat GROUPTHINK.

There have been many studies about Groupthink since William White coined the term in 1952. The term applies to the philosophy that group values (real or perceived) are not only expedient but right and good. In LWV directors are given standards of behavior which tells them to get along, become one of the (good old) boys, don’t express contrary opinions or values, and get along in peace and harmony. This does, of course, result in a false sense of serenity, a smooth surface that belies the tensions of the community. That is, the boards soon no longer represent the diverse opinions and needs of the community. They are good old boys. They get along.
What would happen if law enforcement walked in here tomorrow? What if people were indicted and dragged off in chains? What would our beloved directors say? Just as Robert McNamara and Kennedy’s entire cabinet said, well they had their reservations. They didn’t agree with everything but felt it was futile to speak out (becoming bad old guys or perhaps old bad guys) when everyone else was so full of confidence. Believe me, Uncle Miltie and the Great Grub are not in Kennedy’s league. What stops people from speaking out? Why don’t they stand up and say that an outrage is being perpetrated by the actions of their board? What good is a statement that they stood up in closed session and objected? How can FOUR BOARDS allow a director to be persistently maligned and disenfranchised without a public statement from ANY director? How can ANY BOARD gang up on any resident they chose to target. How can ANY BOARD condone and participate when complaints are filed against these residents alluding to unsubstantiated misdeeds even when witnesses discount these allegations? How can ONE BOARD sit there and allow a sitting director to be voted off the board even when a judge of the superior court agreed that they did not have the legal right to do so? And why has no member of that board taken their feet to say, Hey, we really didn’t have the right to do this. Victims of GROUPTHINK, all. STANFORD, come and get us, we are ripe for your studies.