Abilene, revisited
By: GreatDecideBlog
In working with many organizations on a wide range of complex decisions, I never fail to be amazed at the reaction to this question; “What is the goal of this decision?, what are we trying to decide?” Almost invariably, the question seems as though it triggers a line of thinking that has not been explored before. The question is usually met initially with a bit of silence, then a moment of anxious glances exchange around the room, and lastly a free wheeling groping for the answer. In defense of those who seem to be the hot seat on the receiving end of this question, it is an easy although risky thing to overlook.
So how does something so central to decision making (what it is that is actually trying to be decided) get overlooked? Is it that so many casual decisions are made each day that we’ve come to believe it’s easy, and take this step for granted in our more complex deliberations? We shouldn’t assume that all decisions are created equal. Think about the tremendous levels of data collection and the amount of time spent by teams and individuals occupied with trying to inform these decisions.
Given all this activity it seems something must be well enough defined to drive the action, so there may be something more at play. I’ve begun to believe that perhaps the objective isn’t so much being overlooked, but that people often immediately switch in to a mode of mind reading and trying to manage the group agreement without giving the group and opportunity to disagree in order to resolve their conflicts productively and find their points of agreement. As such, they are reluctant to say too much for fear of saying something that deviates from what may still be the unknown group norm or consensus. The idea is beautifully set out by Jerry B. Harvery in his article The Abilene Paradox: The Management of Agreement.
Here is the short version of the paradox, you can read the more detailed discussion at the link above.
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http://thegreatdecide.wordpress.com/2011/05/16/abilene-revisited/
