Every group of people needs someone who Organizes Things. These individuals are often annoying, but they’re also invaluable. Nothing ever gets done without them.
The benevolent dictator is the ideal government. The non-benevolent dictator is the worst government. A 100% participation democracy is paralysis.
It was and shall be ever thus.
Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.
(Margaret Mead)
I don’t believe anyone has mentioned my favorite aspect of “consensus culture,” some group meets and goes through the tedious process of reaching “consensus,” only to have one whiner go to management afterwards and complain, such that management puts the kibosh on the agreed plans. Happened more often than I could count.
Come to think of it, the classic saying used to be 'too many cooks spoil the broth "
Consensus culture requires all participants to consent before an action can be taken. I think “too many cooks spoil the broth” is the opposite: no consensus whatsoever is required, which results in each person adding their favorite ingredients to the pot and ultimately crafting an inedible slurry of every spice in the cupboard. To go back to the OP’s situation, it would be the equivalent of each employee in the group buying a fridge of their own choosing, ultimately filling the break room with fridges.
I agree they’re very different in specific. But they both amount to “lots of decision-makers = a bad result”. The sayings just differ in whether the bad result is too much or too little of the desired action.
With something like an office fridge or microwave, there should be no need for mass consensus. Just get a basic appliance. If someone is upset because it doesn’t have some quirky feature or isn’t in their favorite color, oh well, too bad.
Speaking for me personally, I would not volunteer to be the fundraiser because I don’t want to get roped into being the permanent office fundraiser and I don’t want to deal with all opinions and griping from coworkers. I also don’t want to be on any committees, go to any meetings, or have to give input on any decisions about those kinds of things. If that means there’s no fridge or microwave because I don’t participate, oh well, too bad. If someone wants a fridge badly enough that they’re willing to go through all that, great! Otherwise, it’s fine with me if nothing happens.
Because if there’s one thing that governments do well, it’s build consensus and get stuff done!
When I was at Intel we had a whole class on this subject. The key phrase was “disagree and commit.” If, during a meeting, there are hold outs, the leader of the meeting should basically stop discussion and tell the holdouts that their disagreement is noted but they had better commit to the decision. I don’t remember if the consequences of not committing were discussed, but I suspect they were career limiting.
So here in human resources world, a consensus culture is one where everyone gets a say in decisions though it doesn’t mean every individual has veto powers. I work for a company with a consensus culture, and if there are any changes, management tries to get all the stakeholders onboard by taking their input. Few companies would be able to stay in business if they literally required everyone to say yes.
Cynicism be as it may, you see in this thread discussions on the result of requiring 100% consensus (nothing gets done) and requiring no consensus (overlapping, conflicting, inefficient results). You tweak the rules and you get very different results.
The output of the work of a group is largely determined by the methods that the group uses to make decisions. If that method is poor then you get bad results. If that method is good, you get good results.
If you target goals like fairness, maximum consideration of input, broad consensus, etc. then you’re liable to never get anything done until it’s an emergency or someone goes crazy from the lack of movement, and rashly does something just to get something done.
If you target goals like maximum output, then you’ll get lots of laws and lots of spending, without much consideration of whether those rules are fair and well-considered, and whether the budgetary expenses are justified.
Regardless of the system, if you stock it full of idiots then you’ll get the product of idiots. If you put in reasonable people who understand things, they you’ve got a chance of a reasonable output. How you choose the participants also matters.
Systems are what matters. The output is only as good as the system and, if you’re not happy with that output, then you need to review whether the system in place is properly configured for best outcomes.
The essence of Bolshevik democratic centralism!
“The philosophers have only interpreted Secret Santa in various ways; the point is to change it”
They tend to work out the same in practice since you end up with everyone trying to implement their own ideas since no group action is taken, and with them interfering with each other’s actions because they object to them.
So you get people milling about complaining and sniping each other but nothing actually getting done. To continue with the cooking analogy, the spices never actually get added because everybody’s wrestling over the bottles.
Or, you end up with a situation where no one wants the responsibility of actually making the decision, so everyone mills around waiting for someone else to take charge.
It’s like the time my parents came to visit and I took them to Napa. We stopped by a cheese shop while we were there (gotta have something to go with the wine). Being stereotypical “polite” Midwesterners, it’s completely against their nature to express any strong preference for anything. So they basically ended up paralyzed in a loop of “Oh, I don’t care, get whatever you want”… “I don’t care either, get what you want”… until I finally intervened and said “Ok, we’ll get one hard cheese and one soft cheese… this one and this one. Now let’s go.”
You did exactly what they said, you got whatever you wanted.
A great many of these issues are solved by there being one person who is committed to the idea, and willing to say “here’s what we’re going to do.” Such as “We all put $10 into the pot, 3 of us will choose 3 different refrigerators, and then we vote on which one we like most. Vote winner gets bought, end of process. If you think one fridge is light years better than the others, convince the voters.”
That’s pretty authoritarian. one might even say fascistic. Demanding that the dissenting side go along with the crowd “or else” just arms conformity and lets the boss and/or the most accomplished brow-beaters, and/or the most persistent filibusterers among the group, be the ones to call the shots and get their way, yet another damned time. Telling the opposers that “their disagreement is noted, but…” is a flat-out threat in that context, especially if there are “career limiting consequences”, as you so nicely phrase it, to not getting in line with the majority.
Well, during my orientation at Intel the first thing the guy said was that if you liked being in the military, you’d like Intel. I thought “oh shit.”
I lasted 15 months before I quit.
However the result of that policy was not all that bad. No one expected you to shut up or change your mind. You just had to give your best efforts to implement whatever decision was taken. The real problems had nothing to do with Disagree and Commit.
Business is authoritarian. Use concensus to arrive at a decision. Once decided, there is (or should be) no allowance for foot-dragging, subtle non-compliance, passive aggressive behavior, nor malicious compliance. Nor social back-biting around the proverbial water cooler.
Data should be gathered to ensure the decision is producing the results as intended. If it turns out the decision was poorly chosen, or circumstances changed, or whatever, there should be the institutional courage to say: “Based on new data we have a new decision. Here it is: …”.
Then the same full effort support should be given to the new decision.