When You Need Consensus, Stick Out Those Thumbs

Not every organizational decision needs to be made by consensus. Plenty of things are best handled by a senior executive or two making a rapid determination. But major shifts or cultural change typically require a lot of people to carry out new tasks in new ways and to think differently; these are things that are much easier accomplished when there’s widespread agreement on the shift.

A sophisticated decisionmaking device

As I wrote in posts about my work with a public media organization developing a digital media strategy, making a big shift usually means guiding a key group of people through decision points and action while planning projects—projects that allow them to learn by acting in new ways well before the process is complete.

Well, I did skip one critical problem: Passing through those decision points can be hard. Really hard. Getting certain groups of people to decide what to do—by building consensus among them—can be about as easy as corralling a bunch of feral cats.

For many people, consensus means getting everyone (or nearly everyone) to agree on the best course of action. In my experience, this is a recipe for failure. This kind of consensus often a) leads to a generalized and watered down conclusion, b) creates a more ambitious conclusion that lots of people say they agree with usually to please a senior manager, or c) leads to no true conclusion at all.

OK, you may ask, then how would you suggest we make decisions by consensus?

My answer: It’s all in the thumbs.