The Abilene Paradox
The problem we face in our conflicted churches is disagreements — right? Well, maybe.
But what if much of the problem is agreements — agreements that are a result of groupthink where people are afraid to express unpopular truths.
Now you’re talking about the Abilene Paradox, a concept introduced by business management expert Jerry B. Harvey.
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 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 as the drive. 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.
It’s one of the hardest things to do in relationships (marriage, family, friendships, church): to express an unpopular opinion while remaining polite, respectful, and under control.
I’m trying to assess the significance of this phenomenon being labeled, The Abilene Paradox. It may be just too deep for me !!!
Having the same thought, David. Guessing the irony goes beyond what Mr. Harvey knows. (Or perhaps not.)
Everyone should watch that video at least once. Group think is deadly to any organization. I have worked with nonprofits for years and watched intelligent men make the most foolish decisions because they were roped into group think.
People are smart.
Groups are ignorant.
Mobs are dangerous.
In qb’s better moments – and there are too few of them, alas – he has found that the best Rx for this is to adapt an approach from the Sermon on the Mount, what Willard calls “the posture of the request” out of Matthew 6. The tactic is essentially to pose a contrary view by suggestion in the form of a question, as in, “what would you say if…?”
On Tuesday mornings from 5:30 to 7:15, the results have been nothing short of phenomenal, if only to sow tares of dissidence among the stale but stubborn certitudes.
qb
not that the point was lost on me, but–if there were going to go to the cafeteria, they should have all gotten the fried fish. then, everyone would have been happy!
“It’s one of the hardest things to do in relationships (marriage, family, friendships, church): to express an unpopular opinion while remaining polite, respectful, and under control.”
Indeed it is. I think one reason is that, at least in moral studies, the intellectual virtues don’t really get mentioned. Many of us are accustomed to talking about moral virtues like courage, justice, temperance, and humility. However, intellectual virtues are good habits of the mind which render it effective in using knowledge. According to Thomas Aquinas, these intellectual virtues include wisdom (the habit of knowing the highest cause of things), science (the habit of drawing conclusions from first principles), and understanding (the habit of seeking out the first principles underlying all knowledge).
Prudence is the practical intellectual virtue pertaining to how such knowledge is pursued and used. Prudence is what prevents a person from studying theoretical physics to the neglect of family. Prudence is also the virtue that helps a person figure out when to express a truth which goes contrary to the majority’s view.
The fundamental insight of Aquinas which I just love as it pertains to this question is that the moral and intellectual virtues are dependent on each other. Without the intellectual virtues, one wouldn’t know one’s own contrary view is indeed truth; without prudence, one wouldn’t know how to use the truth that one has. And to develop either set of virtues, they need to be practiced.
Practically, I think this means that church folk especially need to start philosophizing with one another. Rather than simply making small talk, I think we need to start having the difficult conversations about things like liturgy, women in leadership, politics, relation to the world, etc. We obviously need to be civil in these conversations, and such conversations need to be directed towards discernment of the truth. The conversations I have in mind are not the ones where everybody expresses their conversation and then goes home happy. Rather, the conversations need to be directed toward principles, i.e., asking what the root cause of our disagreement is, and where false conclusions might be drawn from those first principles. By loving one another in such discerning conversations we can develop both the intellectual and moral virtues necessary to put a stop to group think.
Beth,
I don’t know you, but I think you are brilliant!
Of course, if not for the Abilene Paradox, the American West would not have been settled (Abilene included). You think anybody really wanted to load up in covered wagons and head out over 1000 miles of empty prairie?
I could apply this to self until you ruined the application by including,
“It’s one of the hardest things to do in relationships (marriage, family, friendships, church): to express an unpopular opinion while remaining polite, respectful, and under control. j/k
Another approach might be, “Let your yea be yea and your nay be nay.”
That road is paved. And most cars have air-conditioning. And at 70 miles per hour, the trip (one way) is less than an hour. And it does not take two hours to eat at a cafeteria (I don’t think we even have any).
This story makes no sense. The facts are all wrong! Unless they went shopping after they ate. And even then, they would have to have gone to more than one store to make this trip four hours long (Unless they went to Academy. I know I can spend hours shopping there.).
I think the moral of this story is that they should have just gone to Brownwood (only 27 miles from Coleman) and eaten at Underwoods.
Unless it was on a Wednesday. Underwoods is closed on Wednesday.
So maybe the real moral of the story is that it is best to call ahead and see if the restuarant is crowded, or is even open. Or at least make sure the air conditioner is working before starting out on such a trip.
In any event, they should have never made the trip, even to Brownwood, if the car’s air conditioner was not working properly.
I’m beginning to doubt that this trip ever really happened.
Abilene was never the same after Mack Eplens shut down. The side dishes were 17 cents, rolls were free (I think), and we were home watching the Cowboys by noon. Nothing paradoxical about that.
Charlie -
Nice lawyer’s take on the Abilene Paradox.
Even better, they should have saved their $$ and gone some Friday or Saturday night to Rancho Loma just outside Coleman — the best restaurant within 100 miles of Abilene.
I think a lot of Elders’ meeting run like this, unfortunately.
I thought about Rancho Loma, but that is sometimes hard to get in and even harder when it is a spur of the moment decision. Also thought about having them just take the cutoff and head to Perini’s. That road is also paved, until you turn in at Perini’s.
Hey, we need to go to lunch! (Some place close, and not a cafeteria!)
The Abilene Paradox appears to be afflicting the IPCC and its “consensus” on climate change – http://tinyurl.com/3yz6a3d
qb
Yes, this is known as “placating.” There are learnable and teachable ways around this.
A great problem is that we are so used to “being polite” at church that people are shocked when you say something like, “I disagree” or “No.”
Keep the faith, Dwayne. When we hunker down, repeating our same disagreement with (___________fill in the blank) to enough people, things do change. If we leave the popularity contest to others – things will and do change, but we can communicate our disagreement or ‘no’ wrapped in gentleness and love. As our new preaching minister said Sunday, since the beginning of man’s history, God’s people have and are causing riots with the SOP. Have faith and stick to the Message from God!
[said in jest but also to an extent, in serious !] ~grin~
I 2nd qb’s first comment/strategy for overcoming this issue. Figuring out how to “speak the truth in love” “will set you free”.
Mike, want to go swimming?
Richard – Absolutely — after the sun goes down.
Context: Richard and I are sitting by the pool Friday evening, talking about getting in — knowing that if we did all the kids would follow. We both agreed that we’d like to do it. Then Richard asked, “Is this the Abilene Paradox?” In other words — were we both saying “sure” because we thought the other one wanted to, all the while neither one really wanting to?
We decided we really did want to get in, and sure enough, the kids all followed. I swam with kids, played games with the kids, dunked kids, and threw kids as long as I could. Then I got out and left it with the younger dad.
It’s not the Abilene Paradox, Richard. It’s the Abilene Bait-and-Switch.
they’re not burning Qumran, too, are they???
qb
I’d like to quote an angel to those that would burn the Koran and those that are burning churches:
“May the LORD rebuke you!!”
And a special rebuke to the ‘pastor’ – Stop grieving the Holy Spirit! You are bringing shame on the Holy Name of Jesus. Stop!!
QB – Just couldn’t let that pass, could you?
In my defense (ahem), yesterday I was teaching about Jewish sects (S-E-C-T-S) while doing a section on NT backgrounds. The Essenes were in my subconscience.
Out of curiosity, is it always wrong to placate? I don’t mean in large matters, but in matters of weekend activities with your spouse or restaurant choices? I mean, you should never give up your morals, but it seems like I’ll have a selfish marriage (which I don’t have yet, but will in just 4 short months) if I never get off my duff and do what he wants when I don’t really want to.
By the way, I do get the point of the story, that none of them really wanted to go, but no one said anything and how that can be applied to moral problems. However, I can tell you that if I only did the things I wanted to do, I’d weigh 500 pounds, eat chocolate and watch Grey’s Anatomy and Gilmore Girls all day long. Sometimes, it’s OK to do something that you don’t want to do, and to be nice about it.
I had a practical application of the Abilene Paradox in a church setting just last night and managed to turn it around thinking of this post. We were in a group meeting before Bible class planning a fall festival for the neighborhood when someone suggested (more like insisted) that we have some way to register people and have information on them. I wasn’t a fan of that suggestion because in this type of activity it’s difficult to manage a registration and I really feel that it should be more about doing something good for the community, getting our neighbors to interact with us and hopefully start thinking of ‘that church down the street’ as their church. A formality like registration is just the kind of institutional thing people dislike about churches.
Despite my reservations, I let the discussion progress for a while. After a bit, folks were starting to get frustrated with how to effectively accomplish registration and a number of untenable ideas were being thrown around. I finally got up the nerve to suggest that we wouldn’t be able to get people interested in registering unless there were some reason for them to do it. Someone came up with the idea of having a door prize to give away and that would effectively accomplish getting the contact information that was desired (not by me, mind you). I did express my reservation about doing something ‘gimmicky’ that our neighbors would see through and that we should really just try our best to be genuinely friendly in this setting. Most agreed and we managed to keep the ‘information gathering’ activity to a moderately non-obtrusive and friendly level.
Someone said “I think a lot of Elders’ meeting run like this, unfortunately.”
That’s why I’m here today, learning more about this topic, specifically to prevent our Council from going to Abilene.