Fuse Together, Fall Together

I was amazed to read the consequences of cohesiveness. Too much cohesion in a group can ultimately lead to it's destruction. In the early stages of a group coming together and team building, the decision making process is improved, but should the group get to close, the opposite becomes true in an effort to maintain and protect the group cohesion and the people in it. Much like a husband agrees to cover for a murder his wife committed, when  group becomes to close, its efforts and decisions are geared toward protecting only that. It can happen very easily. Lets take a hypothetical situation: a new employee comes into an established group. This person is new and has ideas for improvement and change. The group sees these improvements as a threat to the existing situation. After a short time, even great and simple ideas that could help the group grow are turned down out of spite and need for protection. Soon this person feels rejected and even discriminated against. Even though the color of that persons skin had no bearing on the way they were treated, the group could quickly find itself facing employment discrimination charges without ever knowing they were guilty of it. Group think is how groups get convinced of following through with things that are in the best interest of the group instead of the best interest of others and the growth of the group. This is happening all the time and it has an up and down, or cyclical, effect. If you watch closely the groups around you, they go through ups and downs that are often land marked  by a person coming or going from group think that forms for a short time.