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Managers Letter
Consensus Decision Making:
Leading by Sharing Control
by Donna Deeprose
Here's a quick yes-or-no quiz on consensus decision making. There's no prize for the right answer, so go ahead and say what you really feel, not what you think you should.
Consensus decision making:
a. Produces better decisions and leads to greater buy-in by everyone involved.
b. Infringes on management's roles and responsibilities.
c. Takes too long and is really a misnomer. What often happens is that eventually one or two people pressure the others to give in rather than buy in.
d. Is too confusing. Workers don't understand the problems, let alone the solutions.
If you chose any answer except
a,
read on. What follows are suggestions from managers who have worked through these problems and discovered for themselves how to make consensus decision making really work.
Role of the Leader
Did quiz response
b
set off an alarm in your head? It's true that consensus decision making calls on managers to share control. But when done right, it does not so much give away your responsibilities as ask you to redefine them.
"We don't abandon our leadership role in the name of consensus," explains Greg Folley, Human Resource Manager at Track-Type Tractors Division of Caterpillar, Inc. in Peoria, IL. Folley sees his role as:
Providing leadership to the division on people issues.
Encouraging the rest of the organization to aim as high as it can, or as Folley puts it, "setting BHAGs [big hairy audacious goals]."
Focusing unrelentingly on continuous improvement.
Modeling the division's common values, particularly trust and mutual respect.
Ron Griffith, a 26-year Caterpillar veteran who manages the division's die design and die manufacturing shop, says, "The role of the manager used to be to get the most work done in the most expedient way. Now we think long term. That requires helping other people develop to where they can make positive contributions." So instead of making all the decisions in his shop, Ron concentrates on:
Coaching employees through career development cycles.
Teaching them what consensus is and how to achieve it. "Consensus is not a unanimous decision," he says. While the familiar definition of consensus is a decision everyone can live with, Griffith's definition is more pragmatic: "seventy percent or more in favor and lack of a good strong argument against." Also, he says, it means trusting that the decision arrived at will be the correct one in that situation.
Stepping in to shield people from "out-and-out failure," but allowing them to experience setbacks they can learn from and knowing the difference. An example of out-and-out failure is a decision that will result in poor quality. A setback could be an approach that takes extra time. It's frustrating but not a disaster.
Being supportive, especially when the team makes an error.
Understanding when a situation calls for an immediate management decision, rather than consensus. An example is a safety hazard that has to be corrected immediately, although, Griffith adds, you might use consensus later to find the final fix.
Three Requirements
The short answer to the issues of responses
c
and
d
is that consensus requires three things: time, trust and focus.
Time.
For a manager used to making tough business decisions quickly and independently, time is often at issue. "It takes time just to get everybody to concur on what the issue is," admits John Kerby, Training and Technical Support Manager for Caterpillar. But he points out that there is a big payoff: "Once you get consensus, the implementation goes a lot faster."
Trust.
When so-called consensus building becomes a win-lose game, what's missing is trust. "You don't always have to agree with people to reach consensus," says Kerby, "but you do have to trust them and have mutual respect."
People naturally come to a group wary and protective of their own interests. Trust develops only as you and the other consensus builders each demonstrate that:
You have pertinent knowledge and skills.
You will behave consistently, e.g., you won't agree to a decision within the group and then disown it on the outside if something goes wrong.
You will consider the interests of others as well as your own.
You can't mandate trust. Developing it takes time. But once you've got it, the whole consensus-building process goes to warp speed. Tom Howe and his colleagues at Texas Instruments' Defense Systems and Electronics Group first started working together to build self-directed work teams 12 years ago. Back then, he says, "Our conversations about business took days and days. Now, if they call and say 'we need to do this,' we reach instant consensus."
Focus.
If you identified with quiz response
d,
you've probably experienced teams that lacked a clear, shared understanding of the issue. Achieving focus requires:
Clear direction, goals and parameters set by the leader. John Kerby, who supervises ten direct reports, provides an example: "Even our budget is built by consensus. I set the goals, challenges and the limits we can't exceed."
Participation by everyone in defining the issues that need to be addressed. "Right now," says Kerby, "we're working on succession planning. One of the keys is getting everyone to agree on what this place will look like five years from now: Will it be bigger or smaller? Will we have more or fewer products?"
Steps to Consensus
Good decisions result from a step-by-step approach to consensus building:
1. Identify the real problem.
"I go around the room and ask each person, 'Do you see this as a problem?'" says Pete Keller, another team champion at TI Defense Systems and Electronics. "You have to get everyone's agreement on what the problem is."
At the start, there will many definitions of the problem. Getting to the heart of the issue requires prodding, listening and possibly research.
2. Make sure everyone participates.
Even in the heat of a lively discussion, Keller keeps watch for those who sit quietly without contributing and actively solicits their opinions. His colleague, Tom Howes, shares Keller's concern about nonparticipants. "Silence is not assent; it's dissent," he says. In his experience, the person who sits silently often leaves the room denying any responsibility for the decision.
3. Collect data.
After the group has defined the problem, its members are not ready to solve it until they've collected all the pertinent data. According to John Kerby, data collection has an important by-product: solidifying cooperation. "I've found that if people don't experience the actual process of gathering data they still don't buy in," he says.
4. Analyze and understand the data.
For example, a technical expert can teach people how to operate a new machine, but the decision makers have to determine for themselves how that new machine will fit into their environment and what its impact will be on their situation.
5. Make choices based on a clear understanding of the consequences.
Make sure that the group considers all the potential results of their decision. Use leading questions to get them to identify the consequences.
6. Get commitment to the decision.
Howes recommends getting a verbal commitment from every person to live with the decision. Unless they acknowledge the decision, Howes warns, some people may walk out and say, "Well, I didn't really agree with it."
Remember, as Griffith says, "Consensus is not a unanimous decision." But if it's developed within an atmosphere of trust and respect, people will support a decision that's less than their ideal.
Donna Deeprose
is a New York City-based consultant and business writer. She is the author of two books,
How to Recognize and Reward Employees
and
The Team Coach.
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Managers Letter
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