Deconstructing Boardroom Consensus

Steering Clear of the ‘Abilene Paradox'

Abilene Paradox: The genesis

Whether in corporate boardrooms for profit or not for profit, or even in national governments led by tin-pot dictators, the dangers of falling in line with groups in the cause of consensual decision-making can be real and often fraught with make-or-break consequences for organisations and even nations. The imperatives for an unctuous nod to collective strategic decisions can be particularly preponderant if the boardroom leadership has a highly credible track record of successfully making high impact decisions and overseeing their effective implementation. Even the independent directors with well-informed doubts about the quality of the decision being pushed through in a consensus-driven culture of collective responsibility refrain from seeking reviews and sanity checks on the flow of decision-making, either out of an urge not to be seen as the filibuster in the boardroom or simply to suppress the feeling of doubt and dissent in a spirit of teamwork. Speaking out of one's mind can be risky in a country club culture.

The dangers of falling in line with groups in the cause of consensual decision-making can be real.

In an article, "The Abilene Paradox: The Management of Agreement," published in 1988, Jerry B. Harvey, a management expert, researched and highlighted a pattern of agreement-oriented group behavior that evades conflict but can lead to results very different from the outcomes desired by the involved actors. The Abilene Paradox is a concept that describes a common phenomenon in group decision-making where a group of individuals collectively agree to a course of action that none of the individuals actually desire. The paradox gets its name from a story about how a family of four, including the husband, wife, and her parents from Abilene, Texas, were spending a hot afternoon under the fan, playing dominoes on the porch at their home in Coleman, Texas, USA. The fatherin- law assumes that the family was looking bored and suggests that they take a trip to Abilene, which involved a little over a fifty-mile drive, to dine at a restaurant. Despite initially not wanting to go, each family member agrees just to avoid appearing non-conformist or to seem more sociable.

They take a long and arduous journey in the heat, expecting a pleasant and sumptuous lunch, only to find some insipid food after motoring on dusty roads amid very unpleasant weather conditions. On returning home, one family member after another opened up about their feelings of frustration, and they all realise that nobody really wanted to go to Abilene in the first place. Each had given their assent to the trip, only to be seen as conforming to the decision of the family. Worse, the family even goes through a round of mutual recrimination, with one accusing the other of the unpleasant decision until the father-in-law admits to mooting the idea only on the assumption that they were all bored at home, when in reality they were all comfortable at home playing a game of dominoes and sipping cold lemonade. The Abilene Paradox illustrates a situation where individuals suppress their true preferences or dissenting opinions in order to avoid disagreement or conflict within a group. People often assume that others hold a certain opinion or desire, and they conform to the perceived consensus, even if it goes against their personal preferences.

As always is the case with any paradox, what seems obvious and agreeable to all may not necessarily be congruent with their beliefs, experience and analysis of the problem at hand.

An alternate expression commonly used to describe this situation is known as an effort not to "rock the boat." While organisations invest considerable time and resources in building high-performing teams and managing conflict, the quiddity of the Abilene Paradox is just the reverse: “the inability to manage agreement is a major source of organisation dysfunction,” as Jerry B. Harvey suggests in his article cited above. He further asserts, “It is my contention that the inability to cope with (manage) agreement, rather than the inability to cope with (manage) conflict, is the single most pressing issue of modern organisations”. The visit to Abilene did cost an otherwise comfortable afternoon and considerable inconvenience to Harvey's family, but in the context of organisations and institutions making far reaching decisions of strategic import, the bus to Abilene can often be a bumpy ride and sometimes prove to be their last trip. Such can be the dynamics of Abilene Paradox that Jerry B. Harvey finds its shadow on America's infamous Watergate Scandal based on his analysis of the testimony made by involved members of the White House staff before the Senate Investigating Committee on the 'Watergate Affair'.

How 'Abilene Paradox' stalks boardrooms?

From the Motorola-Iridium project management debacle of the 1990s to the collapse of Credit Suisse Bank last year, presumably due to weak risk management practices and internal controls, and behind almost every organizational crisis and sickness, an element of the Abilene Paradox could be detected among the causal factors. No crisis erupts overnight unless an industrial accident or a technological glitch like the recent Crowdstrike - Microsoft outage affects businesses. Just as the human body manifests symptoms of an underlying malady over a period of time and timely diagnosis can hold the key to remedial treatment, an able team in any boardroom has the fundamental responsibility to read the symptoms that invariably arise out of organisations in trouble and amplify them objectively for corrective action. But unfortunately, if the boardroom culture of an organisation has taken the course of ''going along to get along'' or “go with the flow” which can happen due to a multiplicity of reasons, Abilene Paradox takes hold and a consequent toll on the diagnostic capacity of the organisation rendering it the victim of a full blown sickness with the associated challenges of turnaround and renewal.

The most common source of inhibition, even among independent directors, that allows Abilene Paradox to play out in the boardrooms is the larger-than-life image of the chairman, who could be the organisation's founder or an extremely successful executive or entrepreneur with a formidable track record. For instance, one could imagine how much conviction was needed for any executive or independent director to even politely disagree in a board room discussion endorsed by the late Lee Iacocca of the 'I Am Chairman of Chrysler Corporation Always' fame. This phenomenon is particularly prevalent in public-sector statutory corporations led by senior bureaucrats or even in private sector businesses led by family patriarchs. Findings from research by the author of this blog point to Abilene Paradox being a threat to the quality of board decisions even in academic, research, and development institutions known for flatter organizational structures, when the chair carries an aura of eminence as a technocrat or an academic.

Other contributory factors to the incidence of Abilene Paradox include board structures and processes where diversity and the devil's advocacy are discouraged by design, or an organisational culture that has taken root and places a very high premium on the speed of decision making at the expense of analysis and accuracy. Many other factors from an organisation's internal and external environment can be attributed to the occurrence of the Abilene Paradox, but it is important for boards and subcommittees of the boards seeking strategic autonomy and high impact performance to run sanity checks at appropriate intervals on whether a shadow of the paradox lurks in any corner of the boardroom. After all, if Abilene Paradox can be tolerated at the board level, it would not be difficult to imagine its influence on the rest of the organisation at the tactical and operational levels of decision-making. As always is the case with any paradox, what seems obvious and agreeable to all may not necessarily be congruent with their beliefs, experience, and analysis of the problem at hand.

Purging boardrooms of Abilene Paradox

Most dysfunctionalities in an organisation manifest symptoms that cause direct pain or prick performance in some way that triggers diagnostic and remedial actions early enough in any healthy environment. The dynamics of Abilene Paradox are far too subtle to draw attention, as all triggers are muted in favour of 'collective deception that leads to self-destructive decisions within organisations' as Jerry B. Harvey puts it. He believes that 'Action Anxiety' and 'Separation Anxiety' are at the core of the Abilene Paradox. If action anxiety impels organisation members to agree to decisions that may be at odds with their beliefs and understanding of the situation on hand, separation anxiety kicks in to further restrain them from taking a stand against the decision of the group as the fear of alienation take over the individual. No amount of diversity in the composition of the board can help to obviate the Abilene Paradox, if board members are hostage to action and separation anxiety.

The Abilene Paradox illustrates a situation where individuals suppress their true preferences or dissenting opinions in order to avoid disagreement or conflict within a group.

With this insight, boards seeking to avoid the Abilene route should consciously find ways of creative communication that help individual board members feel empowered to express their views without reservations and inhibition. There can be no cookie-cutter recipes to develop such communication tools as each board and boardroom environment is unique with its own operating protocols and sub-culture that exists and evolves within the framework of the organisational culture and its core values. Further, mutual respect among the board members- executive, nominee and independent directors without letting personal halo to colour the boardroom proceedings can contribute to an environment in which open and honest discussion can happen. Of course, it is vital to not allow license for passive listeners to pass judgements or anyone to play to the gallery. The bottleneck is always at the top of the bottle and boards as the apex decision making organ of an organisation would be failing in their duties if decision making processes are not set free from Abilene Paradox.