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Why Consensus Is Overrated

By Alan Weiss

Working with a client recently, I was reminded of how much the client doesn’t know because the client’s employees are good at what they do. It also explains why the best companies are those which most frequently use consultants (and are rarely price sensitive).

Gathering Around a Common Denominator

During my work with senior managers at a global company, I gave them a standard exercise based on a true story. Six groups worked on the problem with the instruction that there were no resource constraints and anything that was technologically justifiable would be accepted as a solution. Then we would compare the solutions against the actual incident.

In doing this all over the world, primarily with entrepreneurs, I typically receive twelve or eighteen recommendations from the six groups, despite my request for only one each. They range from the calculated to the comical. About one team in twelve will come up with the actual, simple, elegant solution.

At this client, all six teams provided a single recommendation which was within the parameters of a common solution! They were astounded. I wasn’t. (Their solution was feasible but unexciting and pedestrian. It would have resulted in a complex mechanism to create long-term growth.)

The reasons that top people in high-performing companies often congregate around a common mean are:

• They tend to think alike, within the boundaries of their (rather profound) corporate culture.
• They don’t talk to outsiders very much, and constantly reinforce their own biases while talking to each other.
• They seldom tolerate radically differing approaches and ideas. (For example, one group member actually suggested the best answer for the problem, but she was virtually ignored, and readily decided not to pursue it in the face of indifference, as I stood there, fascinated.)

The Consulting Fresh Air

Consultants bring in fresh air. Even if it's merely validating what a good client already knows is needed, it's a tremendously valuable pursuit. But in those instances where we help people to view issues differently, to consider innovative approaches, and to question their own subtle biases, we’re worth the client’s weight in gold.

The client I refer to above was smart enough to know I was needed. In fact, they hired me to help with analogous issues they help their own clients with, but are far harder to self-implement (which is why the coaching profession helps so many people who, themselves, effectively can help others but can’t have themselves as clients).

The best, most confident organizations make these kinds of decisions. Remedial help is seldom high potential for consultants, because the people who got themselves in that mess are seldom smart enough to realize (or secure enough to admit) that they need help to escape their own morass. Rather, it’s top-performing companies which accept the fact that they must infuse the culture with continuing fresh air.

Consequently, the worst thing a consultant can do is fearfully conform to the organization’s norms, manically avoid stepping on corporate toes, and precariously try to be politically correct.

In short, the client doesn’t need another traditional, new employee. They need a non-traditional consultant.

Know What You Are Looking At

This all means that when you observe corporate behavior, you shouldn’t be fooled by consensus and overwhelming agreement. Such conformance may only be a sign of thinking within a small box and blind reliance on protocol and history. Even if you’re a facilitator, remember that your job isn’t to help everyone agree, but rather to help everyone air all possible alternatives and ideas.

Consensus has to follow creativity. Agreement can only follow alternatives.

I’ve seen consultants turn down business, abbreviate assignments, and gloss over client issues merely because everyone was in agreement. I’m more alarmed when I see universal agreement than when I see substantial disagreement. If an organization can generate a diverse range of opinion, support a process which synthesizes it, and engage in finding the best answer, not the most popular, it’s doing very well!

Consensus is overrated. Agreement can be deceptive. Universal support can be universally dumb.

Our job is to create and circulate fresh air. Don’t worry about being unpopular or going against the flow. Too many consultants are petrified about people not liking them.

You only need one person to like you, the buyer. And even then, if the buyer likes the results, who cares what the buyer thinks of you? If the buyer is breathing fresh air, that’s probably going to be good enough.

Want to read more by Alan Weiss? Visit his author page.

Alan Weiss, Ph.D., is the author of twenty-seven books appearing in eight languages. His newest, The Global Consultant (with Omar Kahn), is due out in fall 2008. He runs the unique Million Dollar Consulting® College three times a year. He has won dozens of writing and consulting awards and is a member of the Professional Speaking Hall of Fame®. Contact him at www.summitconsulting.com, or at his blog, www.contrarianconsulting.com.