I had the greatest learning experience through my doctoral programme at the George Washington University’s (GWU) Faculty of Business and Government from 1987-1993. I was on formal study leave but without a Civil Services Department (JPA) scholarship because the Training Division of JPA lacked foresight and instituted the ‘1986 Budget cuts’ upon in-service scholarships with immediate effect.
I therefore lost my JPA scholarship which I had only obtained under very challenging circumstances, and by the grace of God and one exemplary public official who decried discrimination.
Nevertheless, the Good Lord still had great plans for me; and it was located exactly within the George Washington University’s faculty and campus experience, right there in the capital of the United States of America. There, slowly but surely, their experiential learning programme allowed, through its very design of their doctoral journey, the most excellent learning outcome uniquely designed for/by me.
The point is I helped them design it and as is well-known, when you design it, you make it even tougher for yourself; it involved collaborative learning goals. I therefore had a great time; first unlearning older values, then learning and relearning new and good values of and for life.
One of the greatest lessons I learnt was from my teacher and professor, Jerry B Harvey, who was Professor of Organisational Behaviour at the Business School, and now, the Professor Emeritus of Management of the George Washington University.
He is also the author of approximately 50 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 featured in several videos focusing on organisational behaviour including, ‘The Asoh Defense’, ‘The Gunsmoke Phenomenon’, and ‘The Abilene Paradox’.
The Abilene Paradox and Trips
Being a graduate student of the US education system, and especially with GWU and interacting with some really excellent teachers, like Jerry B Harvey, Peter B Vaill and Seyyed Hossein Nasr, and within the context of the Public Policy Environment of the Washington Beltway, I cannot but comment on the now so-called ‘government shutdown’.
I call this shutdown an excellent case of “mismanaged agreement,” as defined precisely by Dr Harvey. Therefore, to educate my readers and to highlight the Abilene paradox and how groups take trips to Abilene, allow me to offer some of Harvey’s glossary and terms:
Abilene Paradox: This is a curious tendency of groups to make decisions or go in directions that no individual members really want to, at least as a group, but end up going in that very direction they exactly did not want. They then blame others for their collective failure; except themselves.
Trip to Abilene: Any decision that a group collectively makes against the unvoiced wishes of its members. Such a trip is inevitably the result of a mismanaged process of agreement but remains unvoiced and implicit, not explicit.
Mismanaged Agreement: The tendency of group members not to offer their true or authentic opinions on related subjects of conversation. And instead, they all implicitly agree with a decision that they do not support and the whole organisation moves in a direction no one really wants.
When the comprehensive meaning of all these words, phrases, and definitions are fully appreciated, the phenomenon of the Abilene Paradox becomes abundantly clear. When directly applied to the current obstinacies of the governance system within the US government, the rest of the world can begin to understand this situation of “mismanaged agreement.”
All sides do not appear to support a government shutdown but that exactly seems to be the assured outcome, unless some students of Jerry B Harvey help the ‘Washington Beltway bandits,’ avoid the trip through escape routes.
Elsewhere in the world, we cannot understand why the US system of governance is in fact allowing itself to move in this very direction which no one; not the president, not the speaker, not even Congress or the Senate really wants? Who or what is then forcing them to move in this undesired direction?
The human ego and the nature of sin
The real problem, as I see it, is that each of the requisite institutions, whether president, speaker, or senators or congresspersons are allowing their public image and egos to define truth and what is really good for the US of A.
This problem is resident in the very nature of human nature. While all these are public officers, they are driven and guided by their own personal sense of right and wrong about the issues and none of them appear to be able to emplace the public interest above those of their own personal inflated but value-based egos.
The essence of the human problem is the very nature of such human selfishness which is called human sinfulness. Too often we do not allow our personal egos which define us, to be set aside or downplayed, to emplace public interest above our own selfish desires.
My prayer for the government of the USA is that they, all institutions and public persons, set aside their personal egos and agendas and do what is really good for the US of A. What is obvious, few have been able, to override their own personal positions, and learn to manage their already common mismanaged agreement. One must cut one’s shirt design according to the available cloth.
They are all agreed that the government shutdown is not good for the nation-state. So, why is the problem so great that they cannot resolve it like normal human beings working out a deal? After all this is the greatest democracy of the world, right? You mean they cannot manage their democratic institutions and traditions which they seek to promote and propagate worldwide?
Who will believe them when they lose all their reputation and cannot manage their democratic traditions; which they seek to sell to rest of the world. Come on America; the world is watching and so far we are not very impressed. May God bless America in deed.
