Sunday, March 3, 2013

The Abilene Paradox


Sometimes groups of people aren't as good at making decisions as individuals. One of the ways group decision-making can fail happens when people make bad assumptions about each others' preferences and don't stand up for their own. Management theorist Jerry B. Harvey calls this the Abilene paradox, and you can read more about it here:
The Abilene paradox

The basic idea is that sometimes individuals in a group don't make their true preferences clear, and since people tend to want to establish and agree with consensus, this can lead to a large group of people collectively deciding to do something that none of them want to do. In the example case, this action is a trip to Abilene, hence the paradox's name. As for me, my only experience in Abilene was that time I saw the movie Twilight, a mistake and example of the Abilene paradox I don't intend to make again.

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