Mr. Galvin:
3
"Group think is typical of business conformity
IS ANYBODY LISTENING TO CAMPUS VIEWS?
BUSINESSMEN ARE.
Three chief executive officers-The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company's Chairman, Russell DeYoung, The Dow Chemical Company's President,H. D. Doan,and Motorola's Chairman, Robert W. Galvin—are responding to serious questions and viewpoints posed by leading student spokesmen about business and its role in our changing society through means of a campus/corporate Dialogue Program.
Here, Arthur M. Klebanoff, a senior at Yale, who plans graduate studies and a career in government, is exchanging views with Mr. Galvin.
In the course of the Dialogue Program, Arnold Shelby, a Latin American Studies major at Tulane, also will explore issues with Mr. Galvin; as will David M. Butler, Electrical Engineering, Michigan State, and Stan Chess, Journalism, Cornell, with Mr. Doan; similarly, Mark Bookspan, Pre-Med, Ohio State, and David G. Clark, Political Science MA candidate at Stanford, with Mr. DeYoung.
Feb. 4
1969
These Dialogues will appear in this publication and other campus newspapers across the country, throughout this academic year. Campus comments are invited, and should be forwarded to Mr. DeYoung, Goodyear, Akron, Ohio; Mr. Doan, Dow Chemical, Midland, Michigan; or Mr. Galvin, Motorola, Franklin Park, Illinois, as appropriate.
Dear Mr. Galvin :
The trend on the nation's campuses is toward greater freedom—and responsibility
What began as an attempt to imitate the highly successful "team" of technologists has become a plodding group of administrative bureaucrats. And whereas the team produced, the group ponders. But "group-think is a strange brand of thought indeed. Group-think places a premium on affability rather than creativity, and waste rather than efficiency. Somehow, group-think demands little or no substantive thinking on the part of the individual.
Yet when he looks at business, and particularly at big business, a student sees an organization oriented to the group rather than the individual, and to that group's security rather than the individual's challenge. That "group" is any collection of administrative peers and immediate supervisors which meets frequently at all levels of the bureaucracy.
-for the individual student. Whether the action is extension of visiting hours for women or relaxation of course requirements, the result is the same: a placing of greater trust in the individual, and a growing array of flexible alternatives for that individual.
My question Mr. Galvin is what will business do to provide the individual with the opportunity-and incentive-to perform, as an individual, the kinds of tasks he is both prepared and anxious to perform? Sincerely yours
Lately, group-think has become synonymous with business administration. Some consulting firms exist merely to sensitize the individual to the group. Yet administration has always been that aspect of business meant to appeal most to a socially conscious college generation. Is it any wonder then that the trend toward individual freedom and responsibility coincides with a growing alienation towards business as a career?
Sincerely yours,
Business is, and must be, strongly concerned with the individual, but since running a business is a team effort, there has to be group orientation, too.
The desire of young people for greater individual freedom and responsibility is not confined to the campus,but is a characteristic of the maturing process. It is not a phenomenon of this generation And it is a good thing when expressed constructively.
As a college student and member of several important campus committees, you must be aware of the importance of individuals pooling ideas and efforts. University-sponsored research programs inquiring into needed social reforms, and working out pilot projects as prototype solutions—methods to overcome widespread illiteracy in the ghettos; to encourage self-respect through self-help, for example—reflect team efforts. Even actions undertaken by the dissenters and protesters on campus result from "committee action" and not the blandishments of one individual.
Dear Mr. Klebanoff:
The concept of granting more and more freedom to act responsibly, with authority, is not alien to business. It is fundamental. Individuals demonstrate talents. Those talents need each other for the attainment of composite results. In the pooling there is no loss of individuality or freedom.
In business, as in other fields, many decisions and actions result from "group-think" meetings, which do indeed demand substantive thinking from the individual. It is my opinion that more creative ideas come from a number of people "thinking" together than separately. One person's ideas spark the thinking of another; some people are naturally better at conceiving the germ of an idea than at refining it to a practical degree. In a group-think one draws upon a multiplicity of talents and viewpoints.
I have attended many group-thinks but seldom one approaching your description. Certainly some were unproductive . . . but usually because of negligence in
disciplining the group to adhere to the subject. Carefully disciplined, no-nonsense creative sessions often produce tablebangings and heated exchanges rather than affability ... and out of them may come solutions to complex problems and decisions involving millions of dollars and affecting thousands of employees and the public. An inefficient or conformist think group would waste talents, manhours, and money.
Business is to blame for the fact that today's college students must make a critical choice between business and other careers without sufficient knowledge on which to base such a decision. Students daily exposed to the campus are well-equipped with knowledge about teaching; an abundance of facts on medicine, government service, and many other fields has long been available. But business has neglected to communicate adequately by way of personal experience, the really significant facts about the realities of business to the very people it is trying to attract.
Its enormous accomplishments that have produced the highest standards of living in the world... its massive research and development programs that are probing into outer space and undersea, which will profoundly affect virtually every facet of man's life... its increasing direct involvement in the social problems of today, and the efforts to devise practicable means of dealing with root causes, not merely surface symptoms, are all part of the daily operations of business.
The solutions being achieved result from "group-think" efforts within a corporation, or between a number of businesses, or as the result of a cooperative effort between business and government. No one individual possesses sufficient facts or knowledge to direct all growth phases of a major enterprise. No one sector of the economy has the technical know-how or resources to carry the load for the continued forward thrust of our national progress.
Within this framework there are "individual" selective tasks and goals requiring "individual" responses. It is through the intermingling of individual talents that viable solutions to the complex problems of today, and the challenges of tomorrow will be found.
Sincerely,
Robert W. Edwin
Robert W. Galvin
Chairman, Motorola Inc.