A group agrees on a course no member wants, because each mistakes the others' silence for assent.
Jerry Harvey's original case: a family drives 53 miles in 104-degree heat to a bad cafeteria in Abilene, and on returning discovers not one of the four had wanted to go. Each had agreed to avoid disappointing the others.
In practice
- Six people on a video call each privately think the redesign is a mistake, and each stays quiet because the silence sounds like consensus. The project ships.
- A family cancels the holiday everyone wanted because the one person who mentioned the cost was met with agreement nobody actually felt.
- Further reading
- Wikipedia
- Subject
- Organizations & Bureaucracy
- Essay
- The folklore of office life