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The Abilene Paradox. Why smart teams agree to decisions that ruin projects and how to stop it
Have you ever agreed to a solution knowing deep down that it was a bad idea? Have you watched your team unanimously adopt a strategy, only to have everyone admit later over coffee that they never supported it?
In this episode, I'm going to show you one of the most destructive yet underrated organizational mechanisms: the Abilene Paradox. It's a phenomenon that causes intelligent teams to make decisions that contradict their members' knowledge and intuition, leading to spectacular failures of multimillion-dollar projects.
Key takeaways:
- The anatomy of false consensus - how 85% of employees fail to voice important concerns to their managers
- The difference between destructive and constructive conflict - why avoiding conflict kills innovation
- Psychological safety in IT teams - how to create a culture where truth is more important than apparent harmony
- The Organizational Transformation Model - a five-step system for building authentic communication
I share real-life examples from my twenty years of experience working with teams, research, and strategies that transform organizational silence into constructive debate.
Thought-provoking statistics: 98% of managers do not use effective decision-making practices, and teams that are encouraged to debate produce significantly more creative solutions than those that avoid conflict.
Who it is for: Team leaders, project managers, IT specialists, anyone who wants to understand why smart organizations sometimes make stupid decisions - and how to change that.
Published on 4 months ago