Escaping the Abilene Paradox
Have you ever assented to a decision you privately disagreed with?
It happens all the time, and even when we know our true opinion, we can let poor decisions go unquestioned and unchallenged when proposed in a group setting.
Consider an example situation for a manufacturing plant’s leadership team:
A manufacturer is looking to resolve costs arising from recurring packaging quality issues, and a meeting has been called to review whether or not to proceed with a new packaging material provider.
The Plant Manager has made it clear the team needs to have a change decided on, and a roadmap in place, before the next corporate project review. They publicly state their view: “We need to pivot to a new supplier - let’s get the specifications ready and out to bid ASAP.”
Immediately, the Maintenance Manager comments “Well, it can’t hurt to try something new, I’m supportive of any improvement efforts.”
The Controller follows, “If we act immediately, maybe we can still hit the annual cost savings target.”
Others sit silent, but offer shallow nods to the group. The meeting adjourns, the decision made.
Confiding in a colleague after the meeting, you realize she shares some concerns about the idea - it’ll be expensive to execute a switch, carries significant risk, and the decision is based on flimsy assumptions, not a root cause study of the problem. To make it worse, other options were available, but not discussed.
The Production Manager had thought about the option of studying the equipment in operation and examining the defects.
The Packaging Engineer had asked for equipment trials with the maintenance technicians and current supplier present.
If any of the individuals had raised objections to the current plan and put their option on the table for discussion, it would likely have created productive evaluation of alternatives, and likely, a different (and better) decision.
This phenomenon was first named in Jerry B. Harvey’s 1974 HBR article “The Abilene Paradox: The Management of Agreement”:
“Organizations frequently take actions in contradiction to what they really want to do and therefore defeat the very purposes they are trying to achieve.”
We propose 3 easy methods to avoid the Abilene Paradox:
1. Create a “Fact Sheet” for Decisions:
If the decision is worth a meeting, it is worth understanding the options available listing the expected benefits and risks. Each opportunity and proposal should have a short “Fact Sheet” to allow objective evaluation and comparison. This mitigates decision biases resulting from an individual’s charisma or authority as they present options.
2. Invert the Speaking Order:
Does the decision owner run the meeting? If so, consider having team members closest to the problem provide their assessment first. Trips to bad decisions occur after a strong stance is taken by an authority figure too early in the decision-making process, when not all the information is on the table.
3. Reward Facts, Not Optimism:
How are contrary opinions met within your organization? If you’re not regularly hearing disagreement on the high value decisions, it’s likely that optimism is being rewarded more than fact-based debate. Consider pausing and discussing the “contrarian” view to each option - or assign a contrary persona as a meeting role. Constructive criticism should be encouraged, or else it will stop being shared.
