The Abilene Paradox and Other Meditations on Management

Chapter 7. Group Tyranny and the Gunsmoke Phenomenon

BECAUSE we worship individuality, we apparently need to believe that groups are tyrannical and that an individual's intellectual and moral integrity are inherently in conflict with irrational, tyrannical pressures to conform. In the service of that need, we have co-opted social scientists to produce theories and research that support that view. In Totem and Taboo, Sigmund Freud attempted to demonstrate how the dynamics of primitive group tyranny destructively coerce individuals to act contrary to deeply held beliefs and values. ^[123] Experiments by Solomon Asch suggest that individuals will conform even when faced with obvious contradictory perceptual information. ^[124] Bion's notion of unconscious ...