What is Consensus?

We can get ourselves in trouble if we are not clear on what we mean.

Came across this piece on Forbes online about the evils of consensus.

Mike Myatt, the author, makes several really important observations about how to work effectively in groups: aligned vision and expectations, clear roles, sufficient resources, precision in execution, among others.

And then he goes on to malign the notion of “consensus” by equating it with “equality” and “groupthink”.

Where do people get these ideas?

Consensus is not the insidious killer Myatt suggests.  The problem is that he misunderstands and misapplies the idea.  If you are in a situation where you are operating as if consensus is the same thing as equality and that it leads to groupthink, you need to stop what you’re doing and call me.

To begin, consensus is not something that applies in all circumstances, as Myatt implies is the norm in many groups.  Further, a consensus decision is not something “we all can live with” in the sense that we’ve just rolled over out of fatigue or as a result of being barraged by the most vocally powerful person in the team.

Consensus is emphatically not muddling toward a watered down middle.  That is political compromise, a dramatically different animal.

Just because you think you are in a “team”, consensus decision making is not automatically called for.  As Myatt and several of is commenters point out, authority and skill differentiation are really, really important aspects of high-functioning work groups.

Consensus is just one of a host of decision making mechanisms that groups have at their disposal.  It should never be the default mode.  It is too time consuming for that.

However, when you need the total commitment of everyone on the team, when the stakes are that high, that’s when you need to invest the time, energy, and personal and political capital to reach consensus.  

A consensus decision is one we’ve sweated over.  One in which we all feel our points of view have been heard, and in hearing it all, we collectively recognize that in the name of what we are trying to accomplish, some ideas just naturally float to the top.

Sometimes, though, by putting everything out there, we can also reach a synthesis that is stronger than any of the individual ideas that were originally offered.

If that is what your circumstances require, if that’s the kind of innovation you think your business needs, then seek consensus.  Real consensus.  

Otherwise, do something else.

Water, Water Everywhere

My recent, personal experience with this most basic life-giving resource.

Over the last four days, I have found myself immersed in water (sorry about that).  Water as a topic for conversation was everywhere.

It started with me designing and facilitating the inaugural meeting of the Global Partnership for Oceans, a group convened by the World Bank and composed of dozens of public and private sector organizations who have decided to come together to seek collective action to save our oceans.

Then, in Friday’s Washington Post, there was this short piece by Ruth Marcus on her dinner with Matt Damon.  He’s part of an outfit called Water.org that is trying to bring clean water and toilets to poor communities, one household at a time.

On Friday afternoon, driving to pick up one of my kids from school, I listened to this radio story about ocean exploration, the Mariana Trench at the bottom of the Pacific, and how little we actually know about the oceans.

Next, I spent the greater portion of a glorious spring Saturday alongside the Potomac River watching one of my daughters compete in a crew regatta, and was struck by our use of this particular body of water for so many purposes.  The racers and countless others were there for different kinds of recreation; and fishermen, a police boat, and Coast Guard helicopters all had access to do their thing too.

And lastly, we had a soaking spring rain yesterday, the lack of which had been turning our season from green to brown and sending up all kinds of warnings about fire hazards.  In April.

This confluence of stories and experiences made me aware of water in ways I hadn’t been before.  It’s possible that this is all to do with Earth Day, which I gather has morphed into Earth Week.

I don’t know that I have any piercing insight as a result of this set of experiences, but I thought it was worth mentioning them.  

Water is basic, and precious.  And like so many precious things in our lives, we take it for granted.  Perhaps we should pay more attention.

Catching Up

Reconnecting after a period away.

Been traveling an unusual (for me) amount these last two weeks.  First a week in Ghana (Accra and Akosombo), then to NYC for some business development and learning.

In Africa, the focus was on leadership transition and group interaction.  Over three days we worked to successfully prepare an office of sixty for a new way of engaging with each other and with clients.  Because of changing internal and external environments, we chose to spend a significant time defining a common purpose for the group’s work, an important anchor.

Lots of lively conversation that led to a commitment to take a systematic look at the office’s work program and overall portfolio and agree on what it means to create value for clients.

Back in the US, I spent three action-packed days in Manhattan learning about complex adaptive systems and a few practical organizational applications of the concept.

I am particularly excited about this as I have been picking up various ideas about complexity over the years and seeking ways to integrate these into my work.  The smart people at Cognitive Edge seem to have figured a lot of this out.

Many thanks to Michael Cheveldave and Laurie Webster who so generously gave their time and experience to neophytes like me.

As I’m still digesting my drink from the fire hose, I expect to be writing a lot more about what was covered in the program and my own experiments with the material in the coming days and weeks.

The time in NYC also allowed me to reconnect with friends and business associates.  It didn’t take long for me to get back into the pace and rhythms of New York, especially as I was commuting in from the CT suburbs.

While it’s great to be home in DC, it’s also good to be reminded that New York is only a short train ride away.

Context is Everything

Where you come from (in every sense) determines how you see the world.

Listening to a radio broadcast the other day, I was reminded in no uncertain terms how important it is to pay attention to context when trying to gather the meaning of what a person is saying.

This was a call-in show on the topic of the Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan following last year’s earthquake and tsunami.

An American calls in.  He’s bright and enthusiastic.  He talks about how remarkably well the plant withstood both the shaking and the surging ocean.  The problem arose, in his view, only when the generators were knocked out by the floodwaters and the fuel could no longer be cooled.

This was a “minor problem” in his estimation, though one with major consequences.  Still, he enthused, this performance gave him every reason to believe the world should be doubling down on nuclear power.  We’re so close to having it figured out.

After I finished scratching my head and tried to put my judgment aside, it occurred to me that this call was a prime example of American optimism and our core belief in human ingenuity.

And, this was a statement made by someone who was 9000 miles away from the events he was talking about.  I wonder if he’d have drawn the same “we can do this” conclusion if the whole thing unfolded near Virginia Beach.

The Japanese response was much more subdued and fatalistic.  The key comment was “We need to be humble and accept what happened.”

Wow.

I can’t imagine a clearer illustration of the importance of context.  How we make meaning based, literally, on where we come from.

This is not about deciding who has The Right Answer, but rather appreciating how we can see the same information and reach entirely different conclusions.  Also how we don’t all have access (i.e. choose to see) the same information, even when it is available to us.

Both have their “right” points, and neither tells the whole story.

And that’s why we have conversations.

What's in a Team?

Recent observations about how we assemble to get work done.

To team or not to team.

Used to be those were our choices when thinking about how to come together to do our work.  And for the last 30 years, everything team has been portrayed as good and virtuous, while not being a team was seen as some kind of deficiency.

It seems we’re getting much more differentiated in the way we think about coming together in groups to do our work.  Some of this may be simply the result of modifications in the language that’s in common use.  The recent emergence of “networks” to describe how we connect to each other is one example.

Still, I think it is more than just semantics.  We are becoming more nuanced observers and designers of what it takes to be effective at our work.

Rob Cross and Jon Katzenbach just published an article that takes a close look at “top teams”.  Senior executives.  That group responsible for running the enterprise with a reputation for not playing nicely together.

Through a lot of interesting network analysis, they make the point that an effective executive team isn’t necessarily all about cohesion and collaboration.  It is rather about figuring out your context, what you are trying to achieve, and then making some intelligent, disciplined choices about how to act and interact.

Dave Snowden has been blogging a bit about what he calls “crews”.  Distinct from teams, crews are characterized by heavy upfront investment in setting people up in their roles.  They also require less effort when put into action.  By contrast, the need for teams to go through formation whenever they are deployed is a “major time waster.”

Think of an airline cockpit crew.  As long as they go through the necessary, pre-established rituals, and have received the required training, it doesn’t matter which pilot is in the seat.

I find all this a really useful development in the field, as it gives us the capacity to be ever more helpful to our clients.