The Abilene Paradox

Members fail to communicate their desires and/or beliefs to one another, and, most importantly, sometimes even communicate the very opposite of their wishes based on what they assume are the desires and opinions of others. People make incorrect assumptions about consensus. Based on inaccurate perceptions and assumptions, members make a collective decision that leads to action. It is in the action that it becomes apparent that the decision is contrary to individual desires. Members experience frustration, anger, and dissatisfaction with the organization. Often this leads to the forming of sub-groups that take combative or blaming positions toward each other.

There is a lot that we can learn from Disney’s Pixar movie Inside Out including leadership and group decision making processes. Inside Out is about a young girl named Riley who lives in Minnesota and the five emotions, Fear, Anger, Disgust, Sadness, and Joy, that characterize her. When Riley moves from Minnesota to San Francisco, the emotions must help Riley stay happy and strong with all the changes she has been going through, but the story takes a twist when Joy and Sadness get trapped outside of headquarters, which is where all the emotions are posted. In this paper I reference Inside Out to three Industrial and Organizational Psychology topics including abuse of power, emotions at work, and groupthink.

If a group of individuals do not understand others who makes dangerous decisions and gives others unrealistic solutions,

The key purpose of our group assignment was to demonstrate the ability to research and critically analyse an organisation’s structure, culture and approach to management and leadership: this essay evaluates one aspect of that experience: my approach to conflict and decision to not undertake a leadership role.

Irving Janis, a social psychologist, studied how social behavior is influenced in group settings. In 1972, he coined the name ‘groupthink’ to describe observed behavioral changes in individuals belonging to groups. Groupthink is characterized by a group’s pursuit for unity, often resulting in individual members disregarding or altering their own beliefs to coincide with the majority, or group’s, beliefs. This disregard or altercation ensures that the group stays unified; however, results in the group committing illogical actions without considering

Groups can influence people’s perception and ideas even if they contradict their own. Groups can act as an entity of authority, and for some people it is difficult to stand out or think differently than their peers. “When we’re in a

Disagreements are unavoidable in any business. A humble stage of disagreement can be helpful in creating enhanced thoughts and approaches, stimulating apprehension and resourcefulness, and motivating the appearance of long-suppressed tribulations. Conflict resolution approach must intend at keeping disagreement at a stage at which different thoughts and viewpoints are completely voiced but uncreative conflicts are discouraged. Encouragement of conflict situations is suitable if the project leader recognizes circumstances of 'group-think.' Group-think is a circumstance where disagreement hardly ever occurs because of high-minded group unity, which results in poor choices and insufficient production. Group-think conquers when there are a large number of members in a group that just agree with anything, with the outcome that there is no grim assessment of the circumstances and innovative thoughts are not recommended. Group members connect larger significance to status, stillness and calm in the group relatively than to procedural capability and capability. Members are unwilling to voice their impartial outlook in order to shun away from offending the

Social organizations pressure one another to conform to decisions made. How? Group conformity shows that individuals often seek agreement with the rest of its members. Concern towards what others think, members tend to comply with arrangements favored by the rest of the crowd. Conditions such as leadership, positions, and circumstances make us believe we need to yield to what society implies is right.

highly cohesive groups where there is a great deal of pressure to agree with each other

As human beings, each person on earth possesses a desire to belong. In order to meet this need, one must find a way to fit in with a group. Yet somehow, once a group has been joined, humans tend to take on the ideas and opinions of the group without analyzing the situation for themselves. Doris Lessing, in her essay, “Group Minds”, proposes the idea that humans spend their whole life going along with the group because they fail to analyze the reasons behind their actions. While Lessing’s idea is valid, no one has yet successfully implemented her plan.

The term groupthink in this report is defined as, the social psychological phenomenon that results in groups during pressure situations. This social psychology theory is broken down into eight signs. Illusion of invulnerability, Collective rationalization, Belief in inherent morality, Stereotyped views of out-groups, Direct pressure on dissenters, Self-censorship, Illusion of unanimity, Self-appointed “mindguards”. According to research conducted by Irving Janis, there are three conditions to groupthink. The first, "high group cohesiveness" which is the direction for a group to be in unity while working towards a goal, or to satisfy the emotional needs of its members. Secondly, the structural faults such as insulation of the group, lack

Groupthink theory often occurs without the group’s realization. Irving Janis formed 8 different symptoms that indicate groupthink. The first of these symptoms is illusions of vulnerability. This occurs when members of the group are overly optimistic and believe that nothing negative will arise from their decision. Janis describes it as taking great risks and acquiring the attitude of “everything is going to be OK, because we are a special group”. Secondly we have belief in inherent morality. This symptom is characterized as the groups thought that they could do no wrong. They believe that they have high morality, that they are right in all situations and they ignore the ethical consequences that could arise because of their decisions. As the third

Often, unethical human behavior is not intentional, but is coincidentally based on boundaries such as individual knowledge, organizational unanimity, and societal acceptance of policy. On an individual level, although unbeknownst to the individual, humans make decisions based on the best outcomes for themselves, which may result in unintentional and unethical degradation of a fellow human. Further, an organizational setting will compound individual ethical dilemmas as internal groups working together seek acceptance through groupthink, which is the tendency of a work group to come to an agreement

I agree with the author that people have the tendency to stick together as a group

In an organization where there is a culture that has been developed through years, a culture of uncommitted individuals and selfish authorities, the harmony that is needed in accomplishing the organizational goals between the management and the rank-and-file employees cannot be attained. At this point, any person who wants to implement changes in the system for the better of the company can experience great stress and difficulty due to the resistance and developed attitudes of the members of the organization.