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The Abilene Paradox After Thirty Years:

A Global Perspective
MICHAEL HARVEY MILORAD M. NOVICEVIC
M. RONALD BUCKLEY JONATHON R.B. HALBESLEBEN
T
he accelerating rate of globalization, the
frequent introduction of new technolo-
gies, and evolving regulation have all con-
tributed to the complexity of conducting
business. The standard operating procedures
of the past have diminished in value, given
the dramatic changes in the business envir-
onment. Managers are casting around to
identify appropriate business models, as well
as the metrics, to determine whether new
solutions have worked.
With an increasingly limited experience
base upon which to make decisions in global
environments, managers tend to rely on con-
sultants or groups for support and guidance
in decision-making. Seeking assistance dur-
ing difcult times or with risky decisions is a
natural phenomenon in business, but this
approach is problematic when it turns into
group decision-making on a consensus
decision. Oftentimes, many of these deci-
sions resemble a camel rather than a horse,
due to the process by which they were
reached, although on the surface they may
have widespread formal support from all
those in the group.
A classic article published in Organiza-
tional Dynamics 30 years ago has become a
must read for academicians and man-
agers trying to understand potential pro-
blems with group decision-making. The
article, the Abilene Paradox: The Management
of Agreement, by Dr. Jerry B. Harvey,
revealed a hidden risk for managers seeking
public support for their decisions (without
evaluating possible individual dissent
behind that public support). We believe that
todays global and knowledge-rich environ-
ment is conducive to the Abilene Paradox.
Thus, it might be timely for a different Har-
vey (with a little help from his friends) to
reexamine the Abilene Paradox and mark
the 30 years it has been in the management
literature.
THE FUNDAMENTAL ISSUES
HIGHLIGHTED BY THE
ABILENE PARADOX
The Abilene Paradox is a parable about how
groups follow a decision-making process
Organizational Dynamics, Vol. 33, No. 2, pp. 215226, 2004 ISSN 0090-2616/$ see frontmatter
2004 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.orgdyn.2004.01.008
www.organizational-dynamics.com
L E A R N I N G F R O M P R A C T I C E
215
that is not entirely open to individual differ-
ences of opinion. The parable used by Profes-
sor Harveytells of four adults sittingona front
porch in Coleman, Texas (some 53 miles for
Abilene), on a very hot summer day. While
everyone appears content drinking lemonade
and playing dominoes, someone in the group
suggests takinga drive toAbilene toeat lunch.
Privately, each of the four participants thinks
this suggestion is without merit because the
only available car has no air-conditioner. But
each one goes along, so as not to be perceived
as a spoiler of the group. Upon returning
exhausted and disgruntled, the family mem-
bers recognize that not a single one of them
wanted to make the trip. They are unable to
justifytheir original decisiontotake a106-mile
drive in a dust stormmerely to eat a mediocre
lunch in such hot weather.
In the organizational realm, the Abilene
Paradox occurs when agreement/consensus
is used in a decision-making process to mask
organizational problems. Once the masks fall,
the consequences can be very detrimental for
the organization (economic loss due to wide-
spread conict) and the people involved
(feelings of misery disrupting cooperation).
Professor Harvey gave an example of how
the Abilene Paradox evolved in a company
where top management wanted to go with its
pet project to Abilene, while all the individual
members of the research and development
(R&D) department wanted to go somewhere
else. Fearful of being accused of insubordina-
tion, the R&Ddirector and his team members
wrote ambiguous progress reports so the
president and vice presidents could interpret
them to suit themselves. As the reports
were slanted to the positive sidewith heaps
of praisea unanimous decision was made
to continue the questionable project for yet
another year. Symbolically, the organization
had boarded a bus to Abilene.
The underlying tenet of the Abilene Para-
dox is that reliance on formal agreement
and/or consensus is sometimes a risky
method for a group or an organization to
use in making a decision. Basically, the Abil-
ene Paradox highlights the collective inabil-
ity to manage agreement and reach an
acceptable decision, particularly when indi-
vidual participants privately feel that an
alternative decision would be better. There
are ve interrelated components of the Abil-
ene example that contribute to the occurrence
of the Abilene Paradox. The rst component
refers to public mutual agreement among
group members that the current situation is
not acceptable. Privately, however, the mem-
bers might not be dissatised with the cur-
rent situation once they have compared it
to a proposed alternative. This type of
group agreement decision reects plura-
listic ignorancea manager misperceives
the level of disagreement in the covert atti-
tudes held individually by group members
in a given situation, and therefore goes along
with the overt group consensus. The second
component refers to ineffective communica-
tion among group members when several
individuals express strong support for the
decision because they presume that is the
desire of others. This owof communication
reinforces the silent assumption of group
members that their private thoughts are a
minority. They are therefore motivated to
remain silent (this phenomenon is com-
monly referred to as the spiral of silence)
and support the formal decision of the
group.
The third component of the Abilene
Paradox is the vocalization of group senti-
ment based on inaccurate assumptions or
misinterpretation of the signals given by
other group members. Such vocalization may
result in actions that no one in the group
desires or supports. As the group does some-
thing that lacks support, members may
become individually dissatised with the
group as a whole. The fourth component
refers to the decision-makers reprise of the
decision in the form of questions: Why did
we do this? How did we come up with this
solution? How can we justify our nal deci-
sion to others? Upon reecting on these ques-
tions in hindsight, group members often
become frustrated and dissatisednot only
with the joint decision, but also with the
group as a whole. The fth component refers
to the failure of the manager to recognize the
216 ORGANIZATIONAL DYNAMICS
process that occurred in making a poor deci-
sion so to avoid making similar poor deci-
sions in the future. These interrelated
components led Jerry Harvey to infer that
unsatisfying, dysfunctional decision-making
based upon false consensus or pluralistic
ignorance is the foundation for the misman-
agement of group agreement. The outcome is
poor decision-making, in spite of a situation
where formal consensus was reached among
the management team members.
The insight of the original Organizational
Dynamics article is that the greater the fear
about being outed in the group for not
sharing the collective attitudes, the greater
the risk of poor decision-making that the
manager wants to avoid. A group member
agrees, fearful of earning the label of the
outsider, which is oftentimes attached to
those who do not go along to get along.
Unfortunately, the emphasis on out-group
labeling has contributed to the seeming dis-
missal of the Abilene Paradox due to the
confusion with the related, but distinctly
different, phenomenon of groupthink.
COMPARING AND
CONTRASTING THE ABILENE
PARADOX AND GROUPTHINK
The groupthink threat frequently oversha-
dows managerial attention to the Abilene
Paradox. Managers have been warned to
avoid groupthinka mode of thinking that
occurs in a cohesive group when seeking
concurrence overrides the critical evaluation
of alternatives. Groupthink, as a collective
pattern of defensive avoidance, is based on
the premise that agreement in groups is
mostly due to the desire to maintain cohe-
siveness in a group. The in-group unanimity
tends to override the group members moti-
vation to objectively assess alternative
actions. The primary factor contributing to
groupthink is the emotional attachment of
individual members to the group, which
leads them to value cohesiveness more than
improved functioning of the group. As this
personal bond of in-group team members
reduces their impartial reasoning, the result
is an inability of individual members to con-
sider objectively possible alternatives. Such
individual unwillingness protects the cohe-
siveness of the group to the detriment of
improved group functioning.
The defensiveness of members engaged
in groupthink can manifest itself in a number
of ways: (1) fabricating information that is
supportive of the leaders or groups posi-
tion; (2) omitting superior alternatives that
challenge the entrenched position; (3) mis-
judging the limitations of the group position
and the long-term impact of a poor decision
on cohesiveness; and (4) underestimating the
warning signs and negative consequences of
not enacting the best alternative for the
group. The bottom line is that decisions are
less functional, due to each individual mem-
bers emotional dedication to the group
and the position taken by the group. As a
result, groupthink lowers group efciency
and effectiveness. The dimensions indicating
how the Abilene Paradox is distinct from
groupthink are shown in Fig. 1. Both phe-
nomena lead to dysfunctional group beha-
vior, but are different and should be treated
as distinct from a management point of view
(see Fig. 1). In particular, global factors might
leadanorganizationdownthe roadtoAbilene
and away from groupthink. Therefore, the
identication of these factors may effectively
provide signals for management to recognize
in time to avoid potential difculties.
GLOBAL FACTORS INCREASE
THE LIKELIHOOD OF THE
ABILENE PARADOX
We think that now would be an appropriate
time to outline and explain the main drivers
of change that contrast the business environ-
ment of the 1970s (when the Abilene Paradox
was introduced in Organizational Dynamics)
with todays business environment. Under-
taking such an exercise will emphasize the
continued, and arguably increasing, impor-
tance of the Abilene Paradox for contempor-
ary managers.
217
Accel erat i on of t he Speed of
Busi ness
Todays manager must be able to make deci-
sions in a fraction of the time previously
devoted to similar decisions. As the need
to utilize time as a strategic tool has been
recognized, companies that cannot adapt to
this modification in their decision-making
will suffer. The pressure to act quickly is
more of a problem when one considers that
many managers do not possess the experi-
ence to make non-programmed decisions in a
global environment.
Digital Equipment Corp.s (DECs) chief
executive ofcer (CEO) Ken Olsen and his
management team had been building a suc-
cessful global minicomputer business for
more than 20 years. By 1990, DEC ranked
27 on the Fortune 500 list of the largest U.S.
companies. That same year, the threat of
workstations and client-server architecture
developed by global competitors to meet
the changing customer needs became evident
privately to individual members of DECs top
management team. However, as a team they
still remained faithful publicly to the Ken
Olsens credo, We always saythat customers
are right, but they are not always right. In
effect, DECs returnfromAbilene startedwith
a sharp decline and heavy losses in 1992 and
1995; it continued with an attempted turn-
around in 1996; and it ended with the acquisi-
tion by Compaq Computer Corp. in 1999.
Increase i n t he Ut i l i zat i on of
Cooperat i ve Gl obal
Rel at i onshi ps
Given the complexity and increased risk
associated with global business, decisions
are frequently made to enter strategic alli-
ances or joint ventures in order to minimize
risk in the current environment. Interorgani-
zational relationships have always been a
means to address markets, but these loosely
coupled systems frequently did not have the
level of interdependence or the level of coop-
eration necessary for long-term success.
Today, it is necessary to form networks
of relationships with foreign counterparts,
along with hybrid organizational cultures
FIGURE 1 COMPARISON OF ABILENE PARADOX AND GROUPTHINK
Abilene Paradox Groupthink
Group Cohesiveness
Not Central & Becomes
Lower after Defective Decision
Members wanting to be
Accepted Most Powerful
Nonexistent, Incompetent or
Ineffective Leadership
Overpowering or Laissez-Faire
Leadership Styles
No Salient External Enemies
External Enemies Show Increased
Group Solidarity
Committed to Private Views
Bring about Pain/Suffering
Preoccupied with Shared
Group Vision/Unanimity
Feeling of Being Coerced
Not Responsible for the Decision
Feeling of Choice Being Made of
Their Own Freewill
Dissatisfaction with the Decision Expressed Satisfaction with the
Group Decision
Blaming of Others in the Group Protect the Leader/Others from
Negative Information
* Adapted from Kim, Y., A Comparative Study of the Abilene Paradox and
Groupthink, Public Administration Quarterly, 25 (2), 2001: 168-189.
218 ORGANIZATIONAL DYNAMICS
that work effectively. However, management
of global networks (involving cross-cultural
coordination and collaboration) is an area in
which many managers have no experience.
Increased Opport uni t y for
Escal at i on of Commi t ment due
t o t he Compl exi t y of t he
Deci si on and/ or Envi ronment
The risks associated with conducting busi-
ness in a global context are exponentially
greater than in a domestic market. In parti-
cular, the threshold of commitment comes
faster than in domestic decisions. Therefore,
managers may be forced to defend continued
funding of projects because so much has
already been invested. The escalation of
commitment to global projects can increase
the insecurity of a manager and will likely
magnify the need for group support. For
example, prior to becoming the CEO of glo-
bal toy industry leader Mattel Inc., Jill Barad
owed her success to effectively developing
collectible versions of the Barbie doll. As the
new CEO, Ms. Barad announced her further
commitment and increased deliveries of col-
lectible Barbie dolls, despite flat prospects of
global toy industry growth. Although this
strategic orientation made little sense pri-
vately to the rest of the Mattel management
team, nobody questioned. Rather, everybody
supported Barads strategy. The result of
Mattels drive to Abilene was excess produc-
tion and depressed margins of the Holiday
Barbie line, one of the companys premier
collectible products.
Increasi ng Ut i l i zat i on of Vi rt ual
Work Rel at i onshi ps
Most managers understand the difficulty
inherent in managing workers in virtual set-
tings. The growth of workplace virtualness
may erode confidence when managing in
such a socially fragmented setting, because
the conventional wisdom and rules of
thumb do not appear to provide managers
with much assurance in their positions.
Furthermore, a manager may not even per-
sonally know some employees, or, at a mini-
mum, may know them less well than was the
case in the more traditional face-to-face rela-
tionships of the past. One of the cornerstones
of management, social knowledge of the
people one supervises, is removed in global
and virtual organizations.
Compet i ng on t he Edge of Chaos
A number of well-known authors have
likened todays business environment to
competing in chaos. If a manager internalizes
this feeling of hanging-on and becomes
risk-averse, the level of confidence will be
reduced, thus diminishing the capacity to
persevere and plan for the future. Risk-averse
management is costly when global rivals
are striving to enter myriad markets simu-
ltaneously and capitalize globally on their
increased presence in emerging markets.
The inability of managers to thrive on chaos
will inhibit them in exploiting the organiza-
tions global presence and transforming it
into global dominance.
With other complexities evolving in
the environment, the drivers of change men-
tioned in this discussion illustrate how
the context of decision-making is uid and
complex for consensus in management
teams. As this type of environmental change
accentuates uncertainty and lack of con-
dence in top managers, it may push manage-
ment teams toward the Abilene Paradox.
Due to this increased complexity and the
unknown nature of environmental change,
it is crucial to identify the early signs of the
potential occurrence of the Abilene Paradox
in management teams and other groups in a
global organization.
IDENTIFYING THE WARNING
SIGNS OF THE ABILENE
PARADOX
The effective management of agreement
takes on increased importance in the global,
hypercompetitive and increasingly virtual
business environment. Therefore, it is crucial
219
for managers to identify the early warning
signs when groups, teams or the organization
as a whole are being driven toward Abil-
ene. The followingset of signals canbe used
to identify the mismanagement of agreement:
1. Mangers who publicly do not fear the
unknown: Disdain for what is not known in
complex situations may be characteristic of
managers who have not recognized how
little they know. This form of arrogance
leads managers to go along because they
lack knowledge or do not have insights into
complex problems. As a result, such man-
agers tend to acquire the that sounds good
to me syndrome. For example, Prodigy, an
IBM Corp. and Sears Roebuck & Co. joint
venture, was the global leader in on-line
shopping in 1990. It was evident privately to
Prodigys top management that new-entrant
AOL was growing at a faster rate, due to its
focus on early computer adopters (in con-
trast to Prodigys focus on its average
consumers). Still, Prodigys top manage-
ment was publicly very vocal about its
unbeatable complementarities between
IBMs competence in computers and Sears
competence in retailing. Specically, one of
Prodigys executives commented on AOLs
rise as just a little thing off to the side.
This arrogance led the company to visit
Abilene and fail in the on-line shopping
industry, while AOL became a global leader
by the end of the 20th century.
2. An organization with little to no conict
or debate on critical issues: Functional conict
is a means of making diversity valuable by
stimulating divergent inputs to solve com-
plex problems. When this resource is under-
utilized, the lack of visible debate and
dissent becomes the foundation for misman-
agement of agreement. The red ag indicat-
ing a climate of conict avoidance is the I
will go along with that syndrome.
3. Overriding leaders and a strong organi-
zation culture: While on the surface both
good leadership and a strong supportive
culture would generally appear to be assets,
a dominating leader like Jacques Nasser of
Ford Motor Company may not only intimi-
date subordinates to the point of submis-
sion, but also may also induce tension in
alliance relationships. In particular, the past
relational culture of Ford-Firestone, having
fostered private silence and public denial,
created a context for the Ford-Firestone tire
scandal to occur. The breakdown of this
hundred-year-old relationship occurred due
to the low-quality Firestone tires mounted
on Fords sport utility vehicles (SUVs),
which in turn caused a series of deadly
accidents. The reputation of both companies
was later gradually repaired only when the
companies publicly admitted responsibility
for awed tires and replaced them free
of charge. This example illustrates how a
dominating organizational culture often
tends to silence managers who disagree for
fear of questioning the corporate culture. The
catch phrase for this concern is they must
know something more than I do syndrome.
4. Lack of diversity and pluralistic perspec-
tive in organization: Homogeneous groups
tend to reproduce themselves, due to similar
learning and thinking styles. Without a
variety of diverse viewpoints and the me-
chanisms to elicit dissenting perspectives,
groups will value consensus (even false
consensus) more than searching for and
getting to the right idea. This form of error
is known as the I dont want to stand out, as
acceptance is more important that being
right syndrome. To prevent the occurrence
of this syndrome that opens the path to either
Abilene or groupthink, the Nissan Motor Co.
board appointed Carlos Ghosn, a Brazilian
national, as the companys CEO. This pro-
vided the company with a global mindset
that could help to prevent the reoccurrence of
the Abilene Paradox.
5. Recognition of a dysfunctional decision-
making environment: An environment that
rewards A while hoping for B is
dysfunctional because incentives are not
aligned with desired behaviors. Manage-
ment in this environment has lost control,
as the directional prerogative of manage-
ment has succumbed to wanting to be liked
by avoiding conict. This is commonly
referred to as the misplaced means and
ends syndrome.
220 ORGANIZATIONAL DYNAMICS
6. Indifference of employees to the organiza-
tion: Indifference breeds complacency, and
with complacency comes reduced effort and
caring. Lack of caring for the outcomes of
the organization leads individual employees
to give in to the it is only a job syndrome.
7. The feeling of a messiah in the
organization and action anxiety on the part of
management: When an organization is inten-
sifying global activities, there is usually one
person (or a small group) who has experi-
ence to manage in that situation. As a result,
there is a tendency to acquiesce to them.
While this would normally be a positive
outcome, the messiah is oftentimes not
right, while other managers in the group do
not have the frame of reference or back-
ground to challenge the top manager. This
lack of challenge leads the management
group to exhibit the great person syn-
drome, discounting their own insights.
When Chainsaw Al Dunlop, a re-
nowned turnaround artist, joined Sunbeam
Inc. as a CEO and a proclaimed messiah,
Sunbeam stock jumped 50 percent over-
night. Having implemented several radical
downsizing measures, Dunlop announced
an ambitious global growth strategic plan
with a focus on Latin America and Asia.
Although this combination of contradictory
strategies made little sense privately to the
management team, the Sunbeam board-of-
directors, or to Wall Street analysts, nobody
dared to question the wisdom of the
messiah publicly. When Dunlops arti-
cial prots from global growth were
eventually revealed, it was too late for
Sunbeam to return from its trip to Abilene.
8. The development of a spiral of silence in
the organization: The spiral of silence occurs
when ones perception of the majority opi-
nion in the organization suppresses ones
willingness to express any challenging opi-
nion against the most visible point of view.
The spiral of silence when managers assess
the distribution of opinions in an organiza-
tion in order to evaluate the chances for
success of their minority viewpoints. This
minority opinion assessment can escalate to
become prevalent throughout the organiza-
tion, resulting in the keeping my head down
and off the radar screen syndrome. For
example, the spiral of silence among its
partners about Enron Corp.s off-balance
sheet accounting practices destroyed
Arthur Andersen, formerly a leading global
accounting and auditing company.
Any of the above warning signals can be
discounted by management, and therefore
may go unobserved for some time in an
organization. Without a proactive surveil-
lance process, the organizational climate
may encourage managers and employees
to fall into the trap of the Abilene Paradox
in their group decision-making processes.
The challenge is how to effectively remediate
these processes in an organization so man-
agers and groups can avoid the trap of the
Abilene Paradox.
THE SYSTEMATIC APPROACH
TO CURING THE ABILENE
PARADOX
Managers might ask themselves, Now that
we have a clearer picture of the issues asso-
ciated with managing agreement, what can
be done if my group or organization has
lapsed into this dysfunctional behavior?
Modifying a corporate culture is a difficult,
time consuming, and high-risk option. How-
ever, if the Abilene Paradox is a reality, it
must be addressed in a systematic fashion.
The steps in the process of wrenching groups
in an organization out of this problem are
illustrated in Fig. 2. Each of these steps will
be discussed separately; however, one must
recognize that the whole sequence of steps
needs to be undertaken to break the hold of
the Abilene Paradox.
Devel opment of an
Organi zat i onal Assessment
Team
The first step in the assessment process is to
decide the membership of the assessment
team. The managers assigned to determine
the organizational health need to be
broadly selected and representative of the
221
various functions and sub-cultures in an
organization. While it is important to have
functional areas represented in the assess-
ment process, it is equally important to have
diversity of perspectives. A pluralistic cul-
ture on the team allows for a wide variety of
perspectives. This reduces the tendency of
the team to have the corporate logic as its
mental model. Such diversity is necessary to
assess the tendency to support the dysfunc-
tional management of consensus. This step is
critical, as the worst outcome would be for
this team to succumb to the Abilene Paradox
while trying to address that problem.
Assessment of Organi zat i on
Cul t ure and Sub- Cul t ure
The first step in the formal assessment of the
organization is for the team to examine the
gap between the organizational culture and
sub-cultures. In this gap analysis, the team
can gauge the strength of the corporate cul-
ture over the various sub-cultural contexts
within the organization. The principle of a
strong culture has often been seen as an
attractive characteristic of global organiza-
tions (e.g., IBM, Microsoft Corp., General
Electric Co., Unilever PLC, and Philips Elec-
tronics N.V.). However, problems arise when
this culture becomes a blueprint for manage-
ment of agreement that suppresses dissent
by depicting it as a behavior not supportive
of the corporate culture. The key elements
that should be assessed relative to this pro-
blem of strong organizational culture are:
(1) hiring practices (inside vs. outside), as
well as the socialization process and integra-
tion of newcomers to the organization; (2) the
identification of the in-group and the com-
FIGURE 2 STEP-BY-STEP ABILENE PARADOX ASSESSMENT PROCESS
Establishment of Assessment/Audit
Team
Assessment of Organization
Culture & Subculture
Assessment of Communication
Patterns/Flows
Key Group Membership/Culture
Reality, Knowledge, Information
Assessment by Subgroups
Feedback
Encouragement of Transparency of
Decision-Making
222 ORGANIZATIONAL DYNAMICS
position of that group; (3) analysis of the
organizations informal structure and the
related in-group influences; (4) determining
who the gatekeepers are relative to the
flowof information; (5) the level of consensus
in the organization; and (6) the opportunity
for dissent and input from outside. This
assessment would provide the team with
key information for ascertaining the potential
for dysfunctional management of agreement
in the organization.
Assessment of Communi cat i on
Fl ows and Pat t erns
By identifying the flow (downward/upward
direction) and pattern (within-group/
between-group frequency) of communica-
tion, the assessment team can determine
the likelihood of dysfunctional behavior
resulting from bottlenecks of communica-
tion. The identification of key gatekeepers
may provide valuable insights into the cul-
tures openness to change. In addition, the
barriers to modifying the decision processes
in the organization can be assessed. Overall,
communication analysis may provide the
most important insight whether the corpo-
rate culture is conducive to the Abilene Para-
dox.
Key Group Membershi p and
Cul t ure Det ermi nat i on
The identification of group membership and
the overlapping in memberships can provide
the assessment team with valuable insights
to the relational and political centrality of key
individuals. The stock of political influence
that managers have, both individually and
as members of power groups, accentuates
the gravity points of power distribution in
the organization. For example, some man-
agers often have significantly more influence
in an organization than the formal orga-
nization chart indicates. Therefore, their
involvement in important groups in the orga-
nization, due to the informal dedication of
others to these individuals, may make them
opinion leaders.
Real i t y, Knowl edge, and
Informat i on Assessment of
Subgroups i n t he Organi zat i on
Jerry Harvey, in his original article, indicated
that if the Abilene Paradox does exist in an
organization, then it is important to reframe
organizational reality so that the organiza-
tions groups can begin to address how to
break internal cycles of silence. Once the
assessment team has identified the problem
and its realistic magnitude, outsiders usually
accomplish such modification to the basic
cultural foundation of the organization.
The reality of the problem must be identified
for two reasons: to knowwho in the company
has the insights and knowledge to bring
about change, and to know who is the least
likely to want to changebecause they have
control of knowledge (often translated into
power). Identifying these bottlenecks of
information is the key to unlocking the dys-
functional aspects of a culture, and therefore,
pivotal in the dismantling of the Abilene
Paradox.
Encouragement of Transparency
i n Deci si on- Maki ng
It is important for executives and senior
managers to open the organization up to
participation in decision-making. This can
be accomplished by providing access to cri-
tical operating data, having open discus-
sions about key strategic aspects of the
organizationandinsuring meaningful invol-
vement of managers. The key to this trans-
parency of decision-making is to encourage
managers to ask questions, in order to better
understand how decision-making in the
organization operates, and how to gain
insights into its successes or its failures.
One technique that has been successful is
to initiate a regularly scheduled manage-
ment information exchange (MIX) meeting.
In this type of interaction, the various groups
in the organization are taught how the
organization operates and how each of their
functions impacts the bottom line. At the
same time, there shouldbe anopenforumfor
223
managers to ask questions that will help
them do a better job. This MIX practice pro-
vides the communications forum to bring
decisions into the light, and to cross-com-
municate the interrelationships that are cri-
tical to understand relative to making new
decisions in the complex global business
environment.
CONCLUSION
The notion of the Abilene Paradox has been
so popular in the past, in part, because it is
such an intuitive concept. All of us have
faced group decisions that we do not sup-
port, but agree to nonetheless. Todays global
business environment further accentuates
the need to recognize how the Abilene Para-
dox can negatively influence group decision-
making, as well as the need to understand the
steps necessary in identifying and alleviating
the problem. In effect, managers can address
the factors contributing to the Abilene Para-
dox and improve decision-making in their
teamwork.
In summary, the Abilene Paradox has
been an intractable problem. The complexity
of the existing business environment will
create a myriad of novel opportunities for
the Abilene Paradox to negatively inuence
the performance of organizations. It is our
hope that we have provided some advice that
will minimize its occurrence. Doubtless, the
next 30 years will bring novel changes that
will require new ways for managers to navi-
gate the route away from Abilene.
224 ORGANIZATIONAL DYNAMICS
SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY
In 2002, an article in Organizational Dynamics
highlighted the problems associated with the
use of managerial conventional wisdoms
in a chaotic globalizing marketplace, see: M.
Harvey and M. Buckley, Assessing the Con-
ventional Wisdoms of Management for the
21st Century Organization, Organizational
Dynamics, 2002, 30 (4), 368378.
The classic article that is the foundation
for this article was: J. Harvey, The Abilene
Paradox: The Management of Agreement,
Organizational Dynamics, Summer 1974, 63
80. The same author provided a more
detailed discussion of the issues associated
with dysfunctional agreement management
in his book The Abilene Paradox and other
Meditations on Management (San Diego, CA:
Lexington Books, 1988).
Groupthink has been discussed in the
literature over the past 30 years. It is impor-
tant for the reader to note the differences
between groupthink and the Abilene Para-
dox. These works should help to clarify the
distinctions: I. Janis, Groupthink (Boston:
Houghton-Mifin, 1982); J. M. Esser,
Groupthink: Effects of Cohesiveness and
Problem-Solving Procedures on Group Deci-
sion-Making, Social Behavior and Personality,
1984, 12 (2), 157164; and D. Goleman, Fol-
lowing the Leader, Science, October 1988,
1824.
For a detailed discussion of the defensive
postures that group members revert to when
in a groupthink mode, see R. Sims, Linking
Groupthink to Unethical Behavior in Orga-
nizations, Journal of Business Ethics, 1992, 11
(9), 651663.
The importance of emerging markets is
discussed in the following articles/book: J.
Garten, The Big Emerging Markets, The
Columbia Journal of World Business, 1996, 31
(2), 631; The Big Ten: The Big Emerging Mar-
kets and How They Will Change our Lives (New
York: Basic Books, 1997); and Troubles
Ahead in Emerging Markets, Harvard Busi-
ness Review, 1997, 75 (2), 3849.
A discussion of hypercompetitive mar-
ket conditions is presented in the following
articles/book by Richard DAveni: Hyper-
competition: Managing the Dynamics of Strate-
gic Maneuvering (NewYork: Free Press, 1995);
Waking up to the New Era of Hypercom-
petition, The Washington Quarterly, 1997, 21
(1), 183195; and Strategic Supremacy
through Disruption and Dominance, Sloan
Management Review, 1997, 40 (3), 127136.
The spiral of silence is explained in the
following articles: G. Taylor, Pluralistic
Ignorance and the Spiral of Silence: AFormal
Analysis, Public Opinion Quarterly, 1982, 46
(3), 311335; C. Glynn, A. Hayes, and J. Sha-
nahan, Perceived Support for Ones Opi-
nions and Willingness to Speak Out: A
Meta-Analysis of Survey Studies on the
Spiral of Silence, Public Opinion Quarterly,
1997, 61 (3), 452463; R. Sternberg, Cost and
Benets of Defying the Crowd in Science,
Intelligence, 1998, 26 (3) 209215.
Michael Harvey received his Ph.D. in marketing from the University of
Arizona in 1976. He has held teaching and research positions at Southern
Methodist University and the University of Oklahoma. Harvey was the
Puterbaugh Chair of American Free Enterprise at the University of
Oklahoma. Presently, he holds the Hearin Chair of Global Business in the
School of Business Administration at the University of Mississippi.
225
Harvey has been an active consultant in global organizations as well as to
family owned and operated companies for the last 25 years. (mharvey@-
bus.olemiss.edu)
Milorad M. Novicevic (Ph.D., University of Oklahoma, 2001) is an
assistant professor of international management at the University of
Mississippi. His teaching interests include international management,
strategic management and international human resource management.
His research has appeared in Journal of World Business, International
Journal of Human Resource Management, Human Resource Management
Journal (U.S.), European Management Journal, among others.
M. Ronald Buckley (Ph.D. in industrial psychology, Auburn University)
is the McCasland Professor of Management in the Michael F. Prices
College of Business and a professor of psychology at the University of
Oklahoma. His research interests include decision-making in the employ-
ment interview, performance appraisal, organizational entry processes,
and the issues surrounding unethical behavior in organizations. He
has published over 60 refereed articles in, among others, Academy of
Management Review, Journal of Applied Psychology, Journal of Management,
Organizational Behavior and Human Processes on topics related to human
resource management.
Jonathon R.B. Halbesleben (Ph.D., University of Oklahoma) is a visiting
assistant professor of management in the Michael F. Price College of
Business at the University of Oklahoma. His research interests include
social comparison, stress and burnout, and the role customers play in the
delivery of services.
226 ORGANIZATIONAL DYNAMICS

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