Want To Make Good Strategic Decisions? Avoid Abilene Paradox
This social psychology paradox is the reason for your group’s ineffective decision-making.
You may have experienced this — someone in your friend circle recommends a movie to watch together. Everyone agrees on the surface, even though they aren’t excited about that movie. But, they keep their feelings a secret only to reveal them when it turns out to be a horrible experience. It leads to an echo chamber: “I only went because I thought all of you wanted to watch the movie.”
*Facepalm*.
It not only happens in your friend circle but in organizations as well. Team members agree on something contrary to what they believe, and they choose to make a sub-optimal decision rather than argue their point of view with the team.
It generally plays out like this: Team members don’t share their views openly, giving each other a (false) feeling that they are behind the proposed “incredible game-changing idea.” They agree on making this idea a reality while having their doubts and not fully believing in it. This eventually leads to frustration when the outcome becomes counterproductive to what they set out to achieve, and the group quickly degenerates into smaller sub-groups blaming each other for this failure.
