Abilene Paradox, or, All My Exes Live in Texas

admin October 01, 2008 leadership, organizational culture 8 Comments

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I’ve seen dysfunctional organizations where the lower level staff knew, more or less, 80% of the cause for the organization’s dysfunction and knew, more or less, 100% of the solution to those causes. But for some reason that information never got shared appropriately. So as the CTO, I now live in fear that I’m replicating the same environment: that as much as I try to solicit input and feedback, at the end of the day folks aren’t speaking up and/or I’m not listening and that all our changes will be lousy as a result. I found out that one form of collective silence has a name: the Abilene Paradox. So we talked about this at a team meeting and I’m trying to foster input. Maybe I’ll use clickers to sanity check ideas so folks don’t have to speak up? Or am I just enabling passivity?

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8 Responses to “Abilene Paradox, or, All My Exes Live in Texas”

  1. Kyle said:

    Oct 01, 08 at 5:27 pm

    I got very tired very quickly of trying to solicit feedback and have everyone look at me with that deer in the headlight look. So now I only ask if I actually want to engage in discussion, and I usually take such an extreme position to start with that folks will talk. Or I tell folks in advance we’ll be talking about something and then call on each of my 14 staff members one by one. Kind of like first grade.

  2. Anon said:

    Oct 02, 08 at 4:48 am

    As one of the “people at the bottom,” I can say that one reason people don’t give feedback is because they think no one’s really listening. My experience is that, rightly or wrongly, people believe that managers come in with their minds made up and the asking for feedback is just to make things look good so they can say they asked for feedback. Sometimes it’s just a matter of managers being up front about what’s off the table in terms of solutions. If you have a big enough staff, it might be possible to solicit anonymous feedback. I, personally, am never afraid to speak my mind, but I know most people at my level are afraid of losing their jobs, of saying the wrong thing and then the managers make their jobs more difficult or the relationship more difficult. I’ll admit it drives me crazy that they won’t speak up. But I have no idea how to convince people that feedback is crucial. I think you have to create an environment where people know that their input is appreciated. I think that means soliciting feedback informally fairly regularly of many different people (i.e., don’t have favorites) and allowing for opportunities for people to talk about their ideas. Maybe even do the Google thing, where people get to work for a certain percentage of time on their own thing and then provide an opportunity for them to present that to the department.

  3. rufusb said:

    Oct 02, 08 at 8:50 am

    In my small group meetings (5 including me) I spill my guts about what I (we) am facing and what I think we should do. I then say “Am I being stupid?” and sometimes they say “yes”. Sometimes they snore. My goal is to form the habit whereby each decision is OUR decision. We all know our roles and we have mutual respect those roles. they have to do all the front line crap and I have to go to all the meetings and deal with money and complaints. I try to hide as little as possible from them and, therefore, expect them to do the same for me. This isn’t without risk, but it makes them feel invested and that they have ownership of the problem and the solution.

  4. admin said:

    Oct 02, 08 at 6:28 pm

    Rufus, I think your approach works well, but in a tiered organization, the solutions may lie in, say, two levels down, and it’s difficult to engage everyone across all levels.

    Anon’s idea of soliciting feedback informally has been good, but sometimes when I walk around I feel that I’m intruding. Still, I’ve had at least one idea killed for excellent reasons as a result of such a conversation and another project rocketed forward due to such a conversation. I tell these stories to folks to try to get more input. Building trust is slow. I really like the idea of having folks present on their work, as long as they didn’t feel too put upon.

    One thing I’m considering doing is flattening the organization. More on that.

  5. Maurry said:

    Oct 03, 08 at 12:04 pm

    There is the obvious danger that if you ask someone for a suggestion on how to fix the problem, and then you do not follow the proposed solution, the person who offered the suggestion, not only may never offer an idea again, but will be offended.

    You might say that only a small person would be offended by this. Yes, I agree. But in my work, I have only met small people.

  6. admin said:

    Oct 06, 08 at 4:46 pm

    Small people? Well, I am pretty short…

    And that’s not such an obvious danger. I do try to acknowledge when I’m not taking someone’s advice. In most cases I try to show I understand the risks and benefits and to note that “full credit will be given if and/or when I’m proven wrong.” People seem to accept this, but you never really know what they’re thinking. Perhaps there’s a blog somewhere else that’s the anti-CTO project blog? Bizarro blog?

  7. Bill said:

    Oct 08, 08 at 2:25 pm

    The fact that you are a) actively asking for feedback, b) aware that you may not be getting all of it, and c) are worried about that would seem to indicated that your already well ahead of the game.

  8. admin said:

    Oct 08, 08 at 4:57 pm

    thanks, Bill. this is what I’m counting on…

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