Business doesn’t always use consensus either. There is usually one person responsible for making the decision, and while they would be smart to encourage a variety of voices to weigh in on a particular option, it still comes down to one person deciding.
After that decision is made, we all do our jobs and support the business’s success regardless of whether or not our opinions were heeded.
Are there really people who expect to “hold out” after a business decision is made, fail to support business initiatives, and then continue to have vibrant career opportunities?
The Boss is frequently not the one with all the relevant info. So consultation with the SMEs and the affected people is smart. But consultation is not necessarily consensus. Ideally part of the consultation process as the choices are being narrowed includes selling the winning choice, or even better the wisdom behind the winning choice, to the affected parties.
But ultimately the time comes when the boss bangs the metaphorical gavel and says “Choice B it is. Let’s go!”. And off we all go to implement choice B as best we can.
Consensus is slow, but works fine if a few criteria are met.
First and foremost for consensus to work, you need a trained, experienced facilitator. This person can state the issue, and crisply but kindly cut off the ramblers, the whiners, and maintain an atmosphere of respect. They will wait until everyone who wants to has spoken, summarize the points still under contention, present them singly for discussion, get each ironed out, offer what appears to be the consensus, or if there isn’t one, what the divisions are and what needs to happen to get one. At the end, this person will ask for volunteers and each will get a time frame to get their job done in.
This is skilled work, most people can’t do it.
Consensus is not about making everyone happy, it’s getting everyone to take some responsibility.
However if the decision maker consistently goes against the majority of stakeholders, the commit part will go away. Unless they are always right, which is unlikely. The decision maker role really cuts in when the staff is evenly divided about something.
A good example of disagree and commit is the “Balance of Terror” episode of ST:TOS. McCoy is against attacking the Romulans, but when the decision maker, Kirk, decides, he just says “I hope you know what you are doing” and never questions the decision again. The scene in the conference room is an excellent example of how meetings and decisions should work.
My previous company had an explicit “decision making framework” to avoid this. I am generally not a fan of that kind of management-speak mumbo jumbo but it did actually do a good job. An important part was to decide who the actual decision makers were at the start of the process, which was generally one person or a small group of a stakeholders, not a consensus among everyone. The decision makers might get the opinion of the rest of the team but it’s ultimately up to them to make the decision
Many people can be consulted, but usually there’s one final decision maker (can be a person or a team). That may or may not be the same person tasked with implementing it.
All this is overkill for a fridge Just get a collection jar going and buy the damned thing. As a distraction, stock it with fancy free beverages, like some obscure La Croix flavors, so people talk about that instead. If anyone complains, they can buy the next one when this one dies.
In my experience, actual business rarely works that way. The realities of organizational politics is that they are complex imperfect machines with lots of different stakeholders all acting in their own interests on imperfect information. There are competing priorities, hidden agendas, incompetent or indifferent management, blame-shifting, poor processes, and poor information collection.
Agree. My shoulds are meant to be normative of ideality, not descriptive of reality.
By and large reality is far messier and it’s a friggin’ miracle the wheezing collection of competing egos, petty fiefdoms, plain incompetence and pig ignorance, not to mention rampant self-dealing can actually generate any profit for the shareholders whatsoever. Which ostensibly is the only reason the entire edifice exists in the first place.
Not to get political, but rightly or wrongly that is a common feeling of many Libertarians, Ayn Rand followers, and MAGA types and why many of them support Elon’s DOGE. That many supposedly “altruistic” groups like unions, government agencies, and non-profits become self-serving centers of waste and corruption because they lack transparency, are not subject to market forces, and hide behind a veneer of sanctimonious moral superiority.
Just get a collection jar going and buy the damned thing. As a distraction, stock it with fancy free beverages, like some obscure La Croix flavors, so people talk about that instead. If anyone complains, they can buy the next one when this one dies.