One hot Texas afternoon, four people climbed into a car with no air conditioning and drove 85 km to Abilene for dinner. The drive was brutal. The food was bad. They came home exhausted.
Not one of them had wanted to go.
THE STORY BEHIND THE PARADOX
Jerry B. Harvey, professor of management science at George Washington University, told this story about his own family in his 1974 paper "The Abilene Paradox: The Management of Agreement."
His father-in-law suggested the trip. His wife said it sounded great. Everyone agreed. Only on the way back, in silence, did the truth come out—starting with his mother-in-law: "To tell the truth, I didn't enjoy it. I only went because the three of you were so enthusiastic."
Every single person had gone along because they thought the others wanted to.
THE COUNTERINTUITIVE CORE
After several episodes on managing conflict, Harvey flips the question.
"It's not about managing conflict better. The more dangerous organizational failure is the inability to manage agreement."
Groups take actions that contradict what every individual privately wants—because each person wrongly believes everyone else is enthusiastic. The result is a decision nobody supports, frustration all round, and bewilderment about how it happened.
The mechanics: members privately agree about the situation and what to do, but fail to communicate it. Everyone misreads the collective reality, acts against their own wishes, and then blames each other—which sets up the next trip to Abilene.
WHY IT'S NOT GROUPTHINK
A crucial distinction. In groupthink, people genuinely talk themselves into believing the bad decision is right. In the Abilene Paradox, they never believe it—they just go along.
The engine is the fear of separation: the anxiety that voicing dissent will get you ostracized. People run "negative fantasies" about what happens if they speak up, and the imagined risk of exclusion outweighs the real cost of going along.
"Clark's first stage of psychological safety is inclusion safety. Here we have the opposite—the fear of exclusion."
WHY THE LEADER SHOULD SPEAK LAST
A practical tip: in a meeting where you want honest input, be the last to speak. The moment you reveal your view, people read your face and align to it. The hope of belonging quietly overrides their real opinion.
THE JAKOB SCENARIO ON ROLEPLAYS.AI
This is exactly why Bernhard built a scenario to practise it. "Where Are We Actually Going?"—free in June.
Five friends from their London Business School MBA plan a trip. It opens in a WhatsApp group. Jakob says: "Let's go to Greece." Jonah: "Greece is nice, I'm easy though." Another: "Croatia would be lovely…" And it drifts. Your job: get the group to a place everyone actually wants. Harder than it sounds. (Make all the personas agree on one location and you might win a prize.)
"Reading about the Abilene Paradox is the easy part. Practice is where it shows if we actually inhaled what we learned."
The scenario isn't negotiation or facilitation. It's closer to hearing what people are not saying—and slowing the group down long enough to find out what they actually want before the booking link goes out.
ONE TOOL TO TRY
The "three hats" exercise (adapted from DreamWorks): assign an optimist, a realist, and a pessimist, and argue the case from all three roles. Suddenly you're not the person saying "I don't want to go to Abilene"—you talk it through, see the pros and cons, then decide.
Today's invitation: start listening for what people don't say but actually think.
REFERENCE: Harvey, J. B. (1974). The Abilene Paradox: The Management of Agreement. Organizational Dynamics.
LINKS: bernhardkerres.com | roleplays.ai
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