Consensus

March 16, 2009 5:52 AM

How do you gain consensus? As a project manager, I need to bring people to the table and get them to agree on positions. This is not always easy. I can't imagine how incredibly difficult it must be for Obama to bring together Republicans and Democrats. What type of magic is required to get people on the same page and moving in the same direction? Real world examples, anecdotes, books, tips, techniques all welcome.
posted by jasondigitized to human relations (16 comments total)

You need to get people to agree on a course of action, not on "positions." Think, for a moment, about what has to happen to get you on board with a particular course of action. Most likely, there has to be something in it for you.

Get in the habit of trying to understand various people's interests. Develop an eye for finding places where those interests intersect. Then, show people how their interests intersect, how they all can benefit individually by working together.
posted by jon1270 at 6:07 AM on March 16

I think it comes down to leadership skills, a projection of confidence, and trust, but essentially boils down to trust. It's something I have a knack for and have been described as one able to 'rally others to my cause'.

On the other hand I'm a reluctant leader, I prefer to influence things quietly in the background, only stepping-up to the plate when necessary such as if there is no leader or they're not doing a good job. I think that's where a projection of confidence comes in. If you're confident that you know what has to be done, people will follow you.

For trust, they need to have the impression that you know what you're doing. Prior evidence of this helps.
posted by hungrysquirrels at 6:10 AM on March 16

I'm reading a book right now called "Rock, Paper, Scissors: Game Theory In Everyday Life" and though I'm not done with it, it deals a lot with overcoming self-interest and showing how cooperation is not just a 'nice' choice but a logical one. You might find guidance, or solace, there.
posted by lpsguy at 6:32 AM on March 16

How do you gain consensus?

You have to listen to people and figure out what they want, what talents they bring to the table and how to use all those talents when setting a course of action.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 6:42 AM on March 16

How do you gain consensus?

Start at an end and work your way backwards. That is, everyone in the room probably agrees on the goal or desired result. The contention is over how to get there, but starting from a position where everyone is in agreement the process of filling in the path should be easier. Should be.
posted by wfrgms at 6:55 AM on March 16

Make people prove why their ideas are preferable to the alternatives. Insist that people give an honest accounting of the pros and cons and inform them of the project priorities and how those ideas fit in.
posted by electroboy at 7:00 AM on March 16 [1 favorite]

A useful technique to use, expanding slightly on wfrgms' point, is to find as many points of consensus as possible before moving onto the more contentious points. The theory is that the more people say 'yes', the easier it becomes to say 'yes'. It's a momentum kind of thing, I guess. Anyway, whilst it won't turn a heated debate around, I have used it successfully to smooth the anticipated humps in a meeting.
posted by mooders at 7:20 AM on March 16

I would say this depends pretty heavily on what you're hoping to form consensus about.

I've been in what-business-decision-should-we-make type situations where by gathering more information and analysing costs, risks, and benefits in more detail has made one option clearly better than another. I thought X was better than Y, but I hadn't accounted for the cost of Z required to make X possible, and with Z taken into account, X was clearly inferior to Y.

That said, my situation had a small number of stakeholders, and easily quantifiable costs. Z = mandatory government safety inspection = $1000.

For comparison, building consensus about things like nationalised health care is more difficult, because there are a great many factors involved and, though they can be quantified, often different assumptions and different means of analysing the complicated problem will lead to different results. Other debates involve two parties with inflexible and fundamentally incompatible standpoints - abortion, israel/palestine, etc - and are examples of things it might not be possible to reach a consensus on.
posted by Mike1024 at 7:34 AM on March 16

One technique I've sometimes found useful is to write everyone's preferred choices up on a whiteboard, then go around the table and get everyone to state one good thing and one bad thing about each choice (including their own).

This often leads to either a realization of why a particular choice is the best one, or a debate about specific points raised, and once resolved, the right choice again becomes clear to everyone.
posted by FishBike at 7:54 AM on March 16 [3 favorites]

My favorite reference on this topic is Facilitator's Guide to Participatory Decision Making. It starts out with describing a common problem in group decision making -- you generate a possible list of solutions, choose one, start moving, and find that your solution is inadequate -- thus requiring another search for solutions. I've worked in high tech product development for over 25 years, and I've seen this problem over and over again. This book is full of good ideas on how to move a group forward through this situation.
posted by elmay at 8:03 AM on March 16

All of the above is excellent advice, especially this:

Start at an end and work your way backwards. That is, everyone in the room probably agrees on the goal or desired result. The contention is over how to get there, but starting from a position where everyone is in agreement the process of filling in the path should be easier. Should be.

If the issue is "easy", IE, there is a concrete result to be had, the process is easy. Take people's proposals and work through them as a group. Pros and cons and costs. The best solution should become obvious.

If the problem is a longer term process where there might have to be multiple meetings, or worse, the project's goals are shifting, have the meetings be about specific topics. First meeting is a determination of the goals, second meeting is a presentation of individuals' solutions, third meeting is a discussion where the participants have come in with analyses of each others proposals from the second meeting. And so on.

Hardest is for nebulous goals that are sort of unmeasurable. "How do we improve our clients' customer experience?" You have to go through the consensus process multiple times to figure out where the opportunities for improvement are, how to measure, etc.

Some problems are well suited to the scientific method- pare down the goals/solutions to a few good ideas, and then send the participants out in teams to try each proposal out for a while, and see which one works best.

In my experience, the best way to come up with a consensus is to have good data. The best solution usually will present itself once the group has looked over the data and can see in raw numbers what the effects will be. If, after that, there are still more than one workable solutions, its time to "push" a consensus toward some other goal. Maybe the new guy has just as good an idea as the wizened veteran- give the project to the new guy so he can gain experience.
posted by gjc at 8:25 AM on March 16

The traditional approach is RACI charts. That's the best link I could find quickly, but there are entire books written about it.

Basically you break down the specific roles and responsibilities with clarity. Getting specific on who's vision is being implemented and documenting it is essential to aligning to a common goal.

The RACI method is somewhat formal, but can offer good structure when there is a lack of it.
posted by Argyle at 8:29 AM on March 16

You may want to check out A Guide to Formal Consensus as well. There are tons of good ideas for concrete strategies of facilitation, gauging interest, dividing responsibility, conflict management, etc.

The point of consensus process is not only to make decisions that everyone agrees with, but to make decisions that everyone feels personally invested in. Getting to that place can sometimes take awhile (and there are ways to shorten it; it's about striking a balance), but if you're committed to the participatory process, you'll have a much stronger group going forward, and hopefully one which contains motivated individuals.

Usually it starts with some brainstorming to get everyone's ideas on the table and then honestly assessing each idea, using techniques like informal polling, going around and each listing one good thing and one bad thing, etc. If the decision you're trying to reach is especially contested, anonymous ballots can be incredibly helpful for getting the different opinions on the table.

I've also found it's incredibly useful to start conversations with agreed upon guidelines. Starting with a shared goal/vision is good, but so are agreements that, for example, encourage participants to enter the conversation with the best interests or principle values of the group - as opposed to individual interests or values - in mind.

Good luck!
posted by lunit at 8:55 AM on March 16

You may want to learn more about Active Listening, too. It's a key part of conflict resolution and mediation training and can be very helpful in moving people from conflict to cooperation.
posted by mediareport at 9:29 AM on March 16

Getting to Yes is a handy book to read on this topic. It might well be the Bible on negotiation.

Bear in mind that consensus (everybody agreeing) is not always attainable, and nor is it really necessary. Too many cooks spoiling the broth, and all that. What's probably more important is to be clear on who has responsibility for each particular issue - eg the IT Architect may consult others, but is ultimately responsible for the architectural design.

Help people to understand that having an opinion on something (even an expert opinion) does not automatically mean that they have responsibility for a decision - see the point above about RACI charts. Do this without devaluing or silencing the person. The point is that on contentious decisions, sometimes somebody just has to make a call & be responsible for it, even if others disagree.

Also, what wfrgms & mooders said.
posted by UbuRoivas at 6:39 PM on March 16

You need to start with people who are not irrational. If you have even one irrational person, you'll all either have to let that person make the decisions, or consensus will be impossible.
posted by peter_meta_kbd at 4:32 AM on March 17