This is part of my 2026 Fall of Fail series. Sign up to my newsletter to receive the next in the series.
“I just watched it happen Joe, it was like a car crash in slow motion.”
“And what did you do?” I asked.
“It just felt like it was the only choice, that doing anything else was suboptimal.”
“So what are you going to do about it now?”
“Everything is in motion, I’m not sure what I could do.”
“There is always something you can do.”
Hi Reader
Everyone makes bad decisions. But the worst kind are the ones you know are wrong at the time and go ahead with anyway. Your instinct is telling you no, but you can't find a logical reason to say no. So, almost inexplicably, you say yes. And so does everyone else.
I have seen many of these situations, and been fired once for questioning a decision that was obviously wrong because firing me was easier than admitting they might be wrong. So why? Why do teams of smart people make bad decisions when they know they are doing it?
Welcome to the Abilene Paradox.
👋 Hi I'm Mr Joe Leech, Trusted Advisor to CEOs, you might know me from my background in behavioural psychology., |
So why?
The Abilene Paradox comes from a story told by management professor Jerry Harvey. On a hot afternoon in Texas, a family is sitting comfortably at home when someone suggests driving 53 miles to Abilene for dinner. Everyone agrees. They endure a long, uncomfortable journey, eat a fairly dreadful meal and drive all the way back.
When they get home, someone admits they didn't actually want to go. Someone else agrees, and before you know it, it turns out nobody wanted to go to Abilene. Each person had agreed because they thought everyone else wanted to. So we have four people, all doing something they didn't want to do, because nobody wanted to be the person who said no. It sounds ridiculous until you consider how often this happens in business.
An SVP proposes an acquisition. The CFO has reservations but assumes the CEO has thought it through. The COO isn't convinced but doesn't want to appear obstructive. The CEO assumes the CFO and COO have no doubts, and not having any obvious reason to say no, gives a half-hearted yes. The board sees a united leadership team and approves the deal. Six months later everyone is wondering how they ended up buying a business nobody thought they should buy.
Everyone involved is intelligent, experienced and has access to plenty of information. Some of them probably have a pretty good understanding of what's wrong. Yet they make assumptions about what everyone else thinks and adjust their own behaviour accordingly.
I've worked with CEOs who have been surprised to discover that their entire leadership team disagreed with a decision they thought everyone supported. The team thought they were being helpful, supportive and pragmatic. Nobody wanted to be difficult or seen as the person holding everyone back. And so everyone goes along with it.
How to avoid the paradox
I think the first thing to recognise is that agreement can be misleading.
It's tempting to come out of a meeting feeling pleased that everyone is aligned [see last month’s newsletter, Alignment is Overrated]. The discussion was productive, nobody raised any serious objections and you've got a clear decision. But did everyone say what they really thought?
As a CEO, you need to be particularly careful about how you introduce ideas. If you start by telling everyone what you think should happen, you've already influenced the conversation. People will naturally start working within the boundaries you've established. I encourage CEOs to give the team the opportunity to form and share their opinions before offering their own.
When somebody disagrees, pay attention to what happens next.
- Does the room get curious?
- Do people explore the objection?
- Or does everyone immediately start explaining why the original decision is still the right one?
You can tell a great deal about an organisation by how it treats the person who says no.
Of course, at some point you need to make a decision and get on with it. You can't run a business where every decision is endlessly debated. It’s healthy for leadership teams to disagree, sometimes quite strongly, and then commit to the decision once it's made. But they need to have had the argument first.
Your experience
Think about the last big decision your leadership team made.
Did everyone really agree? Or did they simply agree to go along with it? - And what happened to the people who expressed doubts? [email link]
Drop me a line and let me know.
I've noticed that CEOs often spend a lot of time trying to get their teams aligned. It's understandable. You need people pulling in the same direction to get things done.
But I'd rather work with a leadership team that argues about the destination than one that happily drives 53 miles in the wrong direction.
Next time, the most wonderful word for the most human of fails, Verschlimmbesserung.
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Thank you and catch you next time,
PS: If this has resonated with you, please do reply or send this email on to someone else
PPS: proudly containing typos, no AI was used in the writing of this email.
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On LBC discussing AI
Which roles should be reserved for humans only? Discussed this on LBC recently.
