What avalanche safety training can teach corporate boards about bad decisions

When everyone agrees, that might be the biggest warning sign of all. Unanimous decisions often reveal as much about group dynamics as genuine agreement.

There is an unlikely field that studies this problem with unusual clarity: avalanche safety.

In avalanche safety training, there is one rule that overrides all others: if a single person in the group says “no,” everyone turns around. Corporate boards could learn something from that.

Corporate boards make some of the most consequential decisions in business — acquisitions, strategic pivots, leadership transitions, major capital allocations. Yet when those decisions appear in board minutes, they are almost always recorded as unanimous. Research suggests dissent occurs in only about 1% of board decisions. That unanimity often reveals as much about group dynamics as it does about genuine agreement.

The rule exists because of a pattern instructors see again and again. Someone senses something is wrong — unstable snow, deteriorating conditions, a risky route — but speaking up means challenging the plan and slowing everyone down. In larger groups especially, that voice often stays quiet.

The most dangerous variable, instructors often say, is not the snowpack. It is the group.

Corporate boardrooms operate under strikingly similar conditions. Directors must make consequential decisions with incomplete information: often within the compressed time frame of a board meeting. The question isn’t whether boards face pressure to align. It’s........

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