Study with Others: Knowledge Sharing or Groupthink?

It goes without saying that there are benefits from studying with colleagues to prepare for certification exams. When you bring in another person (or persons) with whom you can learn, you’re boosting the information available to both of you by aggregating the knowledge of multiple individuals. When you get together, you can share what you’ve learned through training and experience and use each other’s comprehension of technologies and techniques to succeed in your credentialing efforts. Yet, there is one pitfall of working with others: groupthink. For those not familiar with the term, it’s a deliberately Orwellian description of a group of individuals suppressing their own views and making their expressed opinions conform in order to “go along with the crowd” and “not rock the boat.” Decisions afflicted by groupthink often fail to take into account the full range of possible alternatives, employ very poor and selective research and inadequately address risks and objectives. Thus, the results of groupthink typically are unsatisfactory for everyone, even though each member approved of the methods and means involved.

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