Abilene Paradox

I received this in my inbox last week, with a note 'You might have seen this earlier. Else it's definitely up your alley.'

I had seen a part of it, the instance in example, and that had set me thinking onto my own confrontation with a similar situation a few years back.

I'd traveled to Pune to visit Dhruva, and I'd done so with difficulty, as I was in the middle of a project with tight deadlines and had to really work overtime to make that trip happen. And the only reason I pushed myself is because I thought Dhruva would be disappointed if I didn't go. 

A day after I was there, we were having a chilled out breakfast and I asked him 'Dhruva, tell me.....this visit of mine, do you think I did this for you or for myself, or maybe both' and I got a no nonsense, categorical response "ma, that's a candid question, and my honest answer is, that you did it for yourself."

And that incident for me, was an eye opener; he had indulged me by saying okay come, thinking I wanted to see him......and I'd done exactly the same, gone thinking he wanted to see me.... And it was like so much effort based on a false premise. (I could have so easily gone a week or two later.)

Today I realize it even has a name; The Abilene Paradox. This is the mail I received:

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"A couple of years back, I wanted to take my family out for dinner. I asked my wife where we can go. Knowing that I like Indian food, she immediately said: “Let’s go to Rajdhani - The Thali Restaurant.”

My son and daughter both nodded in agreement. On return my son said: “I wish Pappa had taken us to Mainland China – he loves Chinese food.” “Or at least to Copper Chimney for the wonderful Punjabi food” added my daughter. “Yes, I too would have loved to go Mainland China”, I said. 

My wife looked surprised: “But didn’t we all unanimously agree to go to Rajdhani” she asked. 

I said sheepishly “I didn’t want you to feel bad.” And both my children nodded in agreement. Here were four people who of their own volition would not have gone to ‘Rajdhani - The Thali Restaurant', but collectively agreed to go there. 

This also happens in the corporate world. This is the Abilene Paradox. Prof. Jerry Harvey calls it “The Inability to Manage Agreement”. 

Abilene Paradox occurs when a group of people collectively decide on a course of action that is contrary to the preferences of many of the individuals in the group.

Prof. Harvey states in his paper ‘The Abilene Paradox’: “Organizations frequently take actions in contradiction to what they really want to do and therefore defeat the very purpose they are trying to achieve”. This is the inability to manage agreement. 

He adds: “The inability to manage agreement, not the inability to manage conflict, is the essential symptom that defines organizations caught in the web of the Abilene Paradox.”

In the corporate world, when the top boss throws an idea, the group immediately agrees. This is because everyone in the group thinks he would look stupid if he disagrees. Standing out as a lone voice is very embarrassing. This leads the group to decide on ‘yes’ when ‘no’ would have been the personal (and the correct) response of the majority. 

I love this from Ayn Rand: “If we have an endless number of individual minds who are weak, meek, and submissive – who renounce their creative supremacy for the sake of the “whole” and accept humbly the ‘whole’s verdict’ – we don’t get a collective super-brain. We get only the weak, meek and submissive mind."

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