132021Apr

The Abilene Paradox The Management Of Agreement

This week we will publish some remedies to the paradox here on our blog as well as in our weekly newsletter. In the meantime, what are you doing in your organization to combat group formation and the abilene paradox? The theory is often used to explain very bad group decisions, particularly conceptions of the superiority of “committee dominance.” Harvey himself cited, for example, the Watergate scandal as a possible case of Abilene`s paradox in action. [9] The Watergate scandal occurred in the United States in the 1970s, when many senior officials in the administration of then-President Richard Nixon cited the cover-up and possibly the execution of a burglary at the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee in Washington, D.C. Harvey, several people who sanitized themselves for cover-up, as an indication that they had made the personal decision. I was afraid to express it. For example, campaign agent Herbert Porter said he “wasn`t someone who gets up in a meeting and says it should be stopped,” a decision he later attributed “to the fear of pressure from the group that was going to happen as a team player.” [9] According to Harvey, the problem that leads to the Abilene paradox is the inability to manage an agreement, not a conflict. The following symptoms must exist in organizations that tend to fall into paradox: in the Abilene paradox, a group of people collectively decides on an approach that goes against the preferences of many or all the people in the group. [1] This is a common breakdown of group communication, in which each member mistakenly believes that his or her own preferences are contrary to the group`s preferences and therefore does not object. A common phrase that refers to Abilene`s paradox is the desire not to “tear the boat apart.” This differs from group thinking in that the Abilene paradox is characterized by an inability to manage an agreement. [3] Ronald Sims writes that Abilene`s paradox is similar to group thinking, but that it differs significantly, including that individuals in group thinking do not act against their conscious desires and generally feel good about the decisions made by the group. [4] According to Sims, in the Abilene Paradox, individuals who act against their own desires have rather negative feelings about the outcome.