The Paradox of Choices
RAJAN AND SUPRIYA, a young couple plan to celebrate their marriage anniversary. They plan to have dinner at an opulent restaurant. The well educated husband asked his wife where they should memorialise the occasion.
The young wife, still unsure of her husband’s preferences conjectures that he prefers Chinese fare. So she calls out, “Let’s go to The Terrace Restaurant at The Mandarin!” The newly-weds nod their heads in happy agreement. They had invited over some good friends too.
Later that night, Meghana said to her husband, Mohit, “I wish Rajan (name changed) had taken us to Shere-e-Punjab for a sumptuous Panjabi meal. “I agree! The Chinese fare was extremely bland,” added Mohit, Rajan’s friend.
Rajan overheard the conversation between Mohit and his wife Meghana and nodded in agreement. Supriya, was taken aback by these remarks and butted, “But didn’t we all unanimously agree to go to The Terrace?” she asked innocently and a little timorously.
Rajan rather sheepishly said, “The three of us didn’t want you to feel bad.”
Here were four individuals who of their own volition would not have gone to The Terrace Restaurant, but collectively agreed to dine there.
This kind of collective public agreement-private disagreement occurs quite often. This is what is termed as The Abilene Paradox.
Prof Jerry Harvey the fabled Management Professor terms it as ‘The Inability to Manage Agreement.’
The Abilene Paradox invariably occurs when a group of individuals collectively decide on a course of action which is contrary to the preferences and choices of the majority of individuals in the group.
Prof Harvey had elucidated further in his paper ‘The Abilene Paradox’, “Organizations frequently take actions in contradiction to what they really want to do and therefore defeat the very purpose they are trying to achieve”.
In the corporate world, when the magnate or top honcho tosses an idea like a dice assuming it to be a game changer the group in unison immediately agrees. This happens primarily as the majority in the group opine that they would expose their ignorance if they disagree.
The human mind for the most part does not possess a robust mind to feel embarrassed. This leads the group to decide on a ‘yes’ when ‘no’ would have been the personal (and perhaps the correct) response of the majority.
It would be appropriate to quote the iconic author Ayn Rand, “If we have an endless number of individual minds who are weak, meek, submissive impotent, who renounce their creative supremacy for the sake of the “whole” and accept humbly the ‘whole’s verdict’, we don’t get a collective super-brain. We get only the weak, meek, submissive and impotent collection of minds.”
THE DISCUSSION IN THE previous segments leads us to analyse various contours, shapes, thoughts, feelings, emotions, the geometry and architecture of the human mind, as it were.
An individual needs to be a harbinger of change and look for various paradigms to break false glass ceilings to obfuscate negative thoughts from the swathes of the mind.
This can be done only through yoga. Yoga here means being in knowledge and performing action.
Yoga means in pursuit of excellence not necessarily perfection. If an individual chases excellence, perfection is at the coattails.
Further, quotidian Sadhana/practice is indeed a paramount requirement. From the field of soccer, cricket, a scientist, a bureaucrat, a musician, a corporate honcho, a seeker, a home maker, everyone can alter the paradigm, thoughts emanating in the mind and contours and shape of our consciousness by continuous and unflinching practice.
Over a period of time results are bound to follow and success is guaranteed. Even if one is not successful at least the mind does not remonstrate itself for not attempting or cracking the code. There is a feeling of self-fulfilment that we as humans broke barriers to take up responsibility which perhaps hitherto we may not have even attempted and lifelong would have berated and condemned ourselves for this abject failure.
The mind or our consciousness would have perennially lived regretfully in guilt, residing in the past and with low prana/energy levels. Therefore humans need to train their minds to become wagers. Only wagers can scale the summit.
Mind Factors: Ready Reckoner
STRENGTHS
Self belief
Robust Mind
Creativity
Productive Thought Process
Clairvoyance
Mental Discipline
Open to new Experiences
Passionate and Enthusiastic
Dynamic Mind
Being in the Present Moment
Positive and Efficacious Thoughts
Latent Inner Potential
WEAKNESSES
Arrogance and Overconfidence
Self Opinionated
Hubristic Tendencies
Cobwebs in the Mind
Wavering Mind
Greed
Victim of Vices
Obsession
Anger
Entanglement
Lust
OPPORTUNITIES
Look for greenfield opportunities
Convert brownfield opportunities into greenfield ones
Develop and Hone new Skills
Fix Goals and Targets
Pursue Hobbies
Keep Company of Positive
and Uplifting People
Plan for the Future
Develop Mental Discipline
THREATS
Confusion and Lack of Discipline
Pursuit of Perfection
Succumbing to Weaknesses
Aping Others
Comparison with Others
Unable to Strategise and Plan
Focussing on the Dark Tunnel
Jealousy and Covetous Nature
– Taken from my third book, ‘The Infinite Mind’ co-authored with Ankush Garg. The book will be available at the Delhi Book Fair (5th -13th January, 2019) and at the Chennai Book Fair (4th – 20th January, 2019).
ravivalluri 