Your task is to compare and contrast Groupthink and the Abilene Paradox in the i
ID: 447931 • Letter: Y
Question
Your task is to compare and contrast Groupthink and the Abilene Paradox in the international decision making process. How are they similar and how might they differ? Is it possible that they are ever forces for the “positive”? Your discussion should include ways to mitigate the phenomena of both Groupthink and the Abilene Paradox inside organizations.Your task is to compare and contrast Groupthink and the Abilene Paradox in the international decision making process. How are they similar and how might they differ? Is it possible that they are ever forces for the “positive”? Your discussion should include ways to mitigate the phenomena of both Groupthink and the Abilene Paradox inside organizations.
Explanation / Answer
In Abilene Paradox, a group collectively comes on a decision, that is contratry to their personal concious and beliefs. i.e. each member of the group believes that his/her view or opinion is counter to what the group wants, and hence, doesnot voice their opinion, to go with the group's decision. According to Jerry B. Harvey,who coined the term Abilene Paradox, the issue that leads to the Abilene Paradox is an inability to manage agreement, not conflict. Whereas Group Think is when the group members, come on decision, and dont voice their opinion to avoid conflicts in the group. Group think can be said as an extreme of Abilene Paradox, where the group members are so adamant at avoiding conflicts that they don't even evaluate any different option or idea. If left unchecked group think can also lead to poor decision making and unethical behaviour in the organization.
the major differences between Abilene Paradox and group think are that in the Abilene Paradox the group members hold a passive attitude towards the group's decision making, where as, in Groupthink the members do actively participate in the group's decision making, but are more focused on agreeing with the leader or the superior's view point, or gaining the image of a good team player. Abilene Paradox occurs with the group leadership being week and inefficient or incompetent, whereas groupthink happens when the leader is owerpowering, and too stuck up with his own ideas, i.e. inflexible or believes in Laissez-Faire leadership. In Abilene Paradox, the group believe sharing their indivisual opinions will bring pain or trouble for other group members, whereas in group think the group members are so preoccupied with what the other members think, that he/she doesnt raise his opinion. Also, in the Abilene Paradox, the group memebrs decision causes dissatisfaction in the indivisuals,, also leading to blame game sometimes, but the group members in group think feel satisfied and defend their decision as correct to agree with the leader's opinion.
Both Group think and Abilene Paradox occur when in the rganization, due to pressure of wrking in a team or a group setup, members of the group start withholding their opinion and ideas, in fear that they may counter the group, and tend to agree to an idea that they are not in favour of. These situations arise in the organization whenthe group member is either embarrassed infront of a superior, scared of the image of not being a team player, or believe that their opinion will not be respected anyway. This leads them to beive that they should not take the risk of contradicting what the group have decided.
To mitigate this, the group leader will have to create an environment of trust where conflicting ideas are welcomed and appreciated. The communiation in the group needs to be improved, by working on th emorale of the group members and motivating hem to share and discuss their ideas. Leader should not take decisions until he/she has heard the opinions and ideas of all the group memebers. All the different perspectives should be welcomed and discussed for its pros and cons within the group. The leader of the group can also use questions to extract the ideas from the indivisula group members, by asking their opinions and qualms about any idea put in the group.
Groupthink can be positive in the situations where the leaders wants the group to agree for a decision without their counter arguments, like in case of military training. Or in negative conditions in the organization, where the leader strives to drive the group towards positive beliefs. For example, if the organization is facing finacial troubles, groupthink can motivate the employees to still to work for the organization to bring it back from the fall, because their group leader has the opinion that they can do that for the organization. Another example can be when in another situation, if the project budgets are being discussed, and the oragnization plans for a tight budget for vaious activities of the budget, due to groupthink, the indivisuals will try to effectively manage their work as per thegiven budget, rather than negotiate for more budget.
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