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Wednesday November 22, 2006

The Abilene Paradox

Last week we gathered for our usual product team meeting. We had an urgent issue to discuss. I had an idea about the expected and desired outcome of the discussion. There must have been six or seven of us in the meeting room and another three on the phone. Everyone stated their opinions, and a vote was taken. The result was different than the expected and desired outcome, but I saw no immediate reason to try and overturn it. Sure enough, this morning, I get an email stating that we, the development team, are required to accept the decision that we voted out the week before. When discussing it, we realized that most of us were in favor of this decision to begin with, and for some reason voted with the majority or abstained. A group of talented professionals, had an educated discussion, and reached consciously, a group decision which in retrospect was, lets say - disappointing.

It is observed and documented that people sometimes have tendencies to "go with the flow", or rather not to go "against the flow". Confused? Don't be. There's a name for this phenomenon. It's called the "Abilene Paradox". It was observed and studied by Jerry B. Harvey. It is best described by the following story:

On a hot afternoon visiting in Coleman, Texas, the family is comfortably playing dominoes on a porch, until the father-in-law suggests that they take a trip to Abilene (53 miles away to the north) for dinner. The wife says, "Sounds like a great idea." The husband, despite having reservations because the drive is long and hot, thinks that his preferences must be out-of-step with the group and says, "Sounds good to me. I just hope your mother wants to go." The mother-in-law then says, "Of course I want to go. I haven't been to Abilene in a long time."
The drive is hot, dusty, and long. When they arrive at the cafeteria, the food is as bad. They arrive back home four hours later, exhausted.

One of them dishonestly says, "It was a great trip, wasn't it." The mother-in-law says that, actually, she would rather have stayed home, but went along since the other three were so enthusiastic. The husband says, "I wasn't delighted to be doing what we were doing. I only went to satisfy the rest of you." The wife says, "I just went along to keep you happy. I would have had to be crazy to want to go out in the heat like that." The father-in-law then says that he only suggested it because he thought the others might be bored.

The group sits back, perplexed that they together decided to take a trip which none of them wanted. They each would have preferred to sit comfortably, but did not admit to it when they still had time to enjoy the afternoon.