The Problem with Consensus


Consensus: a word with positive connotation because it suggests inclusiveness, rather than driving a decision by brute force.

And yet, at the workplace, most people are not fans of consensus. Like take that scenario where most bosses genuinely allow the team to decide where and how to celebrate a product milestone: now tell me honestly that you came out of the room still a fan of consensus.

That example brings out the first issue with consensus: as Bruce Eckel wrote, it “is the slowest possible decision process, excepting probably war.” To continue with that analogy, trying to arrive at a consensus is like the trench warfare of the first World War, a war of attrition that takes years. Makes you yearn for tanks and fighter jets, right? Ah, that slippery slope to a non-consensus way of deciding things…

Moving back to the topic, if we arrived at a consensus over something, the price in time that we paid inevitably creates the next downside: a consensus driven approach creates an aversion to revisiting any decision already made.

Next there’s the problem that consensus is not scalable. You may be able to get a consensus with 3 other people in the room; but good luck trying to make it work with 10 tomorrow. Ask any coalition government if you don’t believe me.

Lastly, consensus leads to a compromise solution, “a decision everyone can put up with”, not “a decision everyone likes”. And that’s never the best decision, Wikipedia notwithstanding.

The alternative, a top-down model of decision making, makes it easy to identify whose blunder cost the company a few millions thereby making it easy to fire that guy.

Which is why companies never shift to the opposite model either. Well, not entirely.

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