...Critique of The Abilene Paradox: The Management Of Agreement Section (3) Article (7) By ROHINI GANDHOTRA Dr. Frear MBA 500: Business and Leadership January 31, 2009 BIOGRAPHY Jerry B. Harvey, a management expert and pioneer of The Abilene Paradox is a Professor of Management at The George Washington University. During his career, he has served as a consultant to a wide variety of industrial, governmental, religious, military, educational, and voluntary organizations. He is the author of approximately fifty professional articles and has written two books: The Abilene Paradox and Other Meditations on Management and How Come Every Time I Get stabbed in the Back, My Fingerprints Are on the Knife? He is also featured in several videos focusing on organizational behavior including, "The Asoh Defense," "The Gunsmoke Phenomenon," and "The Abilene Paradox". In addition, he has published articles such as, "It's Not My Dog," "Eichmann in the Boardroom," "Organizations as Phrog Farms," "Interrupted Prayers and Organizational Un*Learning." Many years ago Professor Jerry B. Harvey discovered that the fundamental problem of contemporary organizations is the inability to cope with agreement—not conflict. He finds that most agreement in organizations is actually false consensus. It occurs because many people feel they might be isolated, censured or ridiculed if they voice objections. This often leads groups to act on inappropriate goals and is a setup for organizational...
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...Case Study Name and Page #: Abilene Paradox Information, Page 115 Student Name: Tony Colon | |Leading Ideas: Revisiting the Abilene Paradox: | | |Is Management of Agreement Still an Issue? | by Kathryn J. Deiss, ARL Office of Leadership and Management Services Program Manager In 1974, Professor Jerry Harvey of George Washington University developed a parable from a real-life experience to describe the issues surrounding how individuals reach agreement, or, more specifically, believe they have reached agreement. Twenty-five years later the lessons and insights his parable generates are still valid and provocative for organizations and the individuals who work together in those organizations. The Parable of the Abilene Paradox1 Four adults are sitting on a porch in 104-degree heat in the small town of Coleman, Texas, some 53 miles from Abilene. They are engaging in as little motion as possible, drinking lemonade, watching the fan spin lazily, and occasionally playing the odd game of dominoes. The characters are a married couple and the wife’s parents. At some point, the wife’s father suggests they drive to Abilene to eat at a cafeteria there. The son-in-law thinks this is a crazy idea but doesn’t see any need to upset the apple cart, so he goes along with it, as do the two women. They get in their unair-conditioned Buick and drive through a...
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...The Abilene Paradox in an organization It was a day like all the others in a banks’ branch, when the manager realised that in the strong room was not enough money to serve the clients for a whole day because it happened to be the end of the month, and lots of funds were going out. The problem was that if he ordered money that actual moment, the security could only bring them to the branch the next day. So he suggested, that the assistant branch manager goes to the nearest branch of the bank to bring money. The assistant branch manager agreed and he went to bring the money. The other employees at the branch that were hearing the conversation did not say anything so one would suppose that silently they were agreeing. Main purpose of these team members was to serve the clients as best as they could and not seem unprepared to the CEO and have troubles of not ordering the money on time. When the assistant branch manager returned with the money a phone call from the main offices upset the group. The CEO of the bank called, really frustrated for the initiative the branch employees took because they weren’t following the policies of the bank and the action they took was not at all secured. He was really angry of the situation and the high risk the employees took of losing the money and he threatened with punishment. The end of the telephone conversation was the starting point for the blaming and faulting behaviour between the members of the group, a basic symptom of an organization...
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...As a person with the ability and the rights to choose I always looked at the pro’s of choice and never dwelled on the cons of it. When I thought about choice I thought about freedom and now my view has changed. Overall the lecture by Barry Schwartz opened my eyes to something new. His main idea was that choice has made us more paralyzed and more dissatisfied. Schwartz explains the cons of having the ability to choose in the modern, affluent, western society. He used an example that I can relate to when he talked about buying a pair of jeans and how when he was younger there was on type of jeans and now there are so many choices. I know when I go to buy a pair of jeans and I realize I do not like them and never wear them I usually get mad at myself because I chose to buy them. Schwartz was very entertaining and does a good job engaging with the audience. Not only was Schwartz appealing to the audience, I also seemed to have an interest in his overall lecture. He used some humorous short picture cartoons that made me laugh a little bit. At first I thought the lecture was going to be a bore but after watching it I realized I was wrong. I appreciated the fact that he used a lot of short picture cartoons that was funny to help support and get his point across to the entire audience. I somewhat agree with Schwartz idea when he stated that choice leaves us dissatisfied because just this past weekend I went shopping for a pair of running sneakers for exercising purposes. There were...
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...The Latino paradox is something that my family and I can relate to, which is the fact that as they (the Latino) become more American, they also become sicker. It's a positive correlation in which the increase of one variable leads to the increase of the other variable. My parents and I have conversations about this all the time and if they had a choice between living in the States or moving back to their homeland, they'd choose their homeland. The amount of stress they experience living in the States is 100x greater than the lives they once lived in Laos. My parents are fairly healthy, but every now and again they'll complain about symptoms they're experiencing and despite our encouragement to go see a doctor, they refuse because "they can't afford to lose a day's worth of pay". I can understand how assimilation has a negative impact on the health of many Latino families because it tears at their cultural values, and those values are what hold their family together - it's what they can identify with. Just like the younger daughter in the documentary, I didn't grow up with my parents around because they were both full-time workers. My older siblings were my caretakers, but I think that's what held us together as a family. We took care of one another and understood that mom and dad couldn't always be around because they had to make ends meet. Of course a lot of it has to do with where we grew up and the people we were surrounded by, but it doesn't surprise me that Latino families...
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..."The city seen from the Queensboro Bridge is always the city seen for the first time, in its first wild promise of all the mystery and the beauty in the world" can be viewed as a paradox because it provokes the thought of how mystery and beauty can both be seen in the same idea (68). This quote is often thought of as a paradox because it causes the reader to think of how a place can be mysterious and beautiful at the same time. Often times, a place or object is either mysterious or beautiful, but there are several things that can contain both of these traits. One thing that contains both traits of being mysterious and beautiful is one's future. On page 69, Nick says, "anything can happen now that we've slid over this bridge ... anything at...
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...A thing in existent may be inexistent. A thing inexistent may be existent. This shows the beauty in postmodernism because it gives us an endless possibility of expressing ourselves. Indeed, a message may be communicated by the use of signifiers which is essentially the heart of postmodernism. A thing, which may be nothing, may be something when viewed differently. Hence, something that does not exist in a work of art may be seen through the connotation of the thing in some other aspects of our lives. For instance, a sun may signify hope, which may then signify attainment of dreams, which may signify success, and so on – the possibility is infinite. From this single thing in a work of art, we may infer different things in different perspectives. However, we may convey a specific meaning in our work when we present the sun with other different things connected to it, making the items interconnected and forming distinct, closely-related messages. Nevertheless, conveyance of ideas by applying postmodernism doesn’t end in what we see, because, in truth, there are many more ideas that are yet to be seen. What strikes me the most about postmodernism is the disorientation that it incites from people. The deconstruction of what is because it is not and what is not because it is. From this, we are obviously confused for how can a thing be something when it is nothing or be nothing when it is something. Here comes the quality of postmodernism that is usually paradoxical, full of irony...
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...An ethical dilemma is a situation that will often involve an apparent conflict between moral imperatives, in which to obey one would result in transgressing another. This is also called an ethical paradox since in moral philosophy, paradox plays a central role in ethics debates. For instance, an ethical admonition to "love thy neighbour as thy self" is not always just in contrast with, but sometimes in contradiction to an armed neighbour actively trying to kill you: if he or she succeeds, you will not be able to love him or her. But to pre-emptively attack them or restrain them is not usually understood as loving. This is one of the classic examples of an ethical decision clashing or conflicting with an organismic decision, one that would be made only from the perspective of animal survival: an animal is thought to act only in its immediate perceived bodily self-interests when faced with bodily harm, and to have limited ability to perceive alternatives. – Think about what we include into the childcare environment to include cultural diversity. Such as: - Singing songs in different languages. - Adding foods on the menu from different cultures. - Providing different costumes from different countries for the children to dress up in. - Providing resources and equipment that promote different culture. For e.g. adding multicultural foods in home corner, using multicultural dolls during play time, displaying posters that promote cultural diversity. - Reading stories which...
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...Discussion Questions: “The Birthmark” English 1301 1. "The Birthmark" is such a rich story that when we begin to explore its deeper meanings we find ironies, ambiguities, paradoxes, and rich symbols, all of which invite a reader's individual interpretation. What irony, ambiguity, symbol, and paradox do you find most interesting in "The Birthmark"? 2. In much of his fiction, Hawthorne treats pride as an "evil." Is there an evil type of pride evident in "The Birthmark"? 3. In what ways is "The Birthmark" for all its promise of an "impressive moral" actually morally ambiguous? Why might some readers find it difficult to view Alymer, for instance, as purely and unambiguously "evil"? 4. Hawthorne didn't feel himself confined to an aesthetic that privileges "verisimilitude," like many 20th century authors (notable exceptions being Kafka, Borges, and Marquez). He felt comfortable allowing his fiction to include "the spirit and mechanism of the fairyland" (his words). What "fantastic" or "magical" elements appear in "The Birthmark"? 5. Consider Hawthorne's presentation of Georgiana in "The Birthmark." What attitudes about women seem to inform his portrait of her? 6. Given that certain themes tend to recur in Hawthorne's fiction, among them the limits of self-reliance and the evils of manipulation, can you analyze how these themes are expressed in "The Birthmark"? Student Questions: • Why did Aylmer marry Georgiana if he hated the birthmark so much? Why...
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...Paradox Therapy Paradoxes gure prominantly in this book, but most of them are purely intellectual. Paradoxical statements are apparent impossibilities that seem well supported by apparently good arguments. Interestingly, there are paradoxical commands as well as paradoxical statements. A very simple example is the command \don't follow this command!" Whatever you choose to do seems to violate the command. In order to obey it you must disobey it, but in disobeying it, you seem to obey it. Now, at rst it might seem that such a command is rather silly and easy to ignore. But suppose you are in the army and the command is given by a superior ocer, or you're a child and the command is given by a parent, or you're in love and the command is given by your lover. In short, imagine that the command occurs in a markedly unequal relationship. Second, suppose that you can't step outside the situation to point out the absurdity of the command. There is no judge that you can appeal to. Then you would be in a major bind indeed. You would be in what psychologists call a \double bind": Anything you do can and will be used against you. Thus we see the three ingredients of a paradoxical command or double bind: (1) a strong complementary or asymmetrical relationship (ocer-subordinate) (2) that can't simply be terminated (because of society, laws, and so on) and (3) an apparently meaningful but logically contradictory order. A realistic example of a double bind is described...
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...that are intended to be lost it shouldn’t seem so disastrous when they are truly lost, but somehow it still is a disaster The irony of this statement is shown by the combination of both the opening as well as the closing lines of the poem. In the opening lines it seems to say that when something follows in its natural path, its intent, it’s no longer qualified as a disaster and shouldn’t be viewed as a disaster. However, in the poems closing lines which state, “Even losing you…Its evident the art of losing’s not too hard to master though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster” (lines 16-19), are defiantly contradicting with the opening lines. I believe this is because the narrator is trying to convince themselves that the truth of the paradox is not a disaster to loose someone if that person intended to be lost. The progression of increased value of “things” lost continues to contribute to the poem’s paradoxical meaning by beginning with items of little value such as “time, places, and names, and even lost door keys,” eventually increasing to things of a greater value such as “mothers watch, houses, cities, rivers, and even an entire continent.” Eventually ending with a loss of what was most valued which in the end happened to be a person. (lines 5,8,10,11,13,14,16). This shows that the narrator is trying to desensitize themselves to loss. For example, they consider all of the other losses in their life that were not “disasters” it would make the loss of this person not a disaster...
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...BAB I PENDAHULUAN Latar Belakang Penulisan Laporan ini bertujuan untuk menyajikan data tentang hasil kuesioner kami sehingga lebih mudah untuk dibaca dan kita bisa menentukan apakan korespon merasa puas atau tidak dengan pelayanan, fasilitas, dan produk dari kesuluruhan proses bisnis yang ada pada supermarket sakinah Setelah dilakukan pengumpulan data kuesioner yang telah di isi oleh responden, maka diperlukan beberapa uji statistik guna menarik kesimpulan atas hasil dari kuesioner yang telah ada. Di mulai dari menguji kereliablitias dan kevalidan data hasil kuesioner sampai confidence interval. Sehingga, dapat ditarik kesimpulan dari data statistik yang telah diolah, apakah customer merasa puas atau tidak dengan proses bisnis di Supermarket Sakinah yang ada yang ditinjau dari beberapa aspek antara lain Fasilitas, Produk, dan Pelayanan yang menunjang proses pembelajaran yang efektif. 1.2 Tujuan Penulisan Untuk mengetahui tingkat kepuasan Customer terhadap proses bisnis Supermarket Sakina ditinjau dari aspek Pelayanan, Fasilitas dan Produk yang dapat menunjang proses bisnis yang tepat. 1.3 Rumusan Masalah Adapun rumusan masalahnya antara lain: Apakah Customer merasa puas atau tidak terhadap proses bisnis di Jurusan Supermarket Sakina ditinjau dari aspek kelengkapan dan kualitas yang prima serta kelengkapan Fasilitas? Apakah Customer merasa puas atau tidak terhadap proses pembelajaran di Jurusan Supermarket Sakina ditinjau dari aspek Pelayanan ? Apakah Customer merasa...
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...------------------------------------------------- Paradoxical thinking for achieving mastery ------------------------------------------------- MGT 605 August 27, 2014 Jennifer Solis Professor McGrath Table of contents 1. Cover Page 2. Table of Contents 3. Major components a. Part 1 – Introduction/ Definition b. Part II – Provide an example of a company that demonstrates paradoxical thinking c. Part III– Discuss whether or not one can learn paradoxical thinking and discuss the reasons for your answer. d. Part IV – Paradoxical thinking is one of eight skills related to intelligence Discuss why it is probably the least used. e. Part V – Summarize your understanding of how management and leadership can utilize paradoxical thinking to improve the organization. 5. Reference page Paradoxical Thinking for Achieving Mastery Most colleges and universities teach cause and effect thinking at the expense of paradoxical thinking which might be a negative impact in these students life. By stating this we are not saying that the cause and effect teaching is bad, but it diminishes the opportunities of a student thinking outside of the box. Paradoxical thinking involves...
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...Ethical Dilemma – Samouel’s Greek Cuisine Joshua has spent several hours researching his portion of his team project. His job is to collect secondary data. The conflicting information that Joshua has found is still considered secondary data even though it is not from a reputable firm. Secondary business data can be very helpful in determining the correct business path for a company to go in. The data, though conflicting should still be incorporated and explained in his research findings to his group. The data is from a government -sponsored website and may be very valuable. Joshua should stay late and examine the quality of the data he has found on the conflicting website. He needs to look at the reliability and the validity of the data that is presented. Who is the information being provided through and how was it collected, and is it free from bias? What was the data in the study originally collected for and does that influence the outcome. The information is from a government sponsored website so there is some credibility in the source. I do not feel that Joshua should ignore this research in his findings. If Joshua feels that he does not want to include this data he should talk to his group and explain why he feels it is not relevant. It should not be hidden from the findings if it has a role to play in the research and can help the restaurant’s performance in the future. There is a value in secondary research and when it is used appropriately...
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...Catcher in the Rye – closed analysis With close reference to pages 183-186 analyse Salinger’s use of language and structure, exploring Holden’s contradictory view of the word Holden is an adolescent struggling against the unfair, sometimes cruel nature of the adult world and sees the hypocrisy and attempts to flee it. Salinger uses Holden’s character to express his views on the 1950’s America and gives us as readers an insight through the first person narrative to the average American boy’s life. Throughout the novel we are able to identify that Holden holds many critical views on the society around him which results in his inability to connect to it. He expresses this insecurity by criticising the flaws that he finds, for example, the unfair class system. At the beginning of the extract when Holden is talking to the two children, he tells them “you should” learn about how Egyptians bury the dead, yet this is a clear contradiction to what Holden himself is like as he doesn’t care about his own education, yet is advising others. Here I believe that Holden is being what he calls ‘phony’ and in this circumstance phony refers to the false pretences and the way he acts like someone he isn’t. However, though Holden uses the word ‘phony’ repeatedly throughout the novel, it doesn’t always mean the same thing. It’s what he uses for describing the superficiality, hypocrisy, pretension, and shallowness that he encounters in the world around him and it stands as an emblem of everything...
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