Mindful Dissent

Abstract

I describe a fictional meeting of a small pharmaceutical company that decides to market a drug with potentially dangerous side effects. I have read the transcript of this meeting to hundreds of students and executives over the years. No one has been able to say what a person in the room could have said that would have changed the outcome. But when we look at the group process mindfully, we see what might have succeeded. This chapter illustrates the psychology of possibility championed by Ellen Langer. A problem that seems impossible to solve does in fact have a possible solution. Objecting to a dangerous course of action is itself dangerous. When approached mindfully, the danger lessons, and a better outcome is more likely.