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Best Practices for Building Consensus

Without making yourself crazy!Building Consensus

We sometimes want to push the idea of building consensus off to the side; it can be a difficult undertaking! The larger the team, the more difficult it is to get everyone to reach consensus and sometimes it is downright impossible! Don’t fret – there are some ways to make the process a bit less difficult land save you money on aspirins for those inevitable headaches when trying to build consensus!

Poll people individually. When I have a number of ideas that need to be agreed upon, I use polling to see which ideas float to the top and are the ones to focus on. This enables us to reach consensus a bit more easily and no one is influenced by someone else. Here is how I do it:

  • Have all ideas presented in a consistent format: business problem being solved, action plan for solving the problem, resources and timing needed. No judgments during the presentation; people simply listen and ask clarifying questions.
  • Ask each individual listening to the presentation (plus the person making the presentation) to individually rank the idea on a scale of 1 – not worth the effort (too much money involved, not impactful enough, don’t have the resources, etc.) to 4 – do it right away (will have a large impact on the business, have the resources and budget to do it well, etc.).

Then, share the information:

  • Have each individual place their ranking on a flip chart for review by the entire room
    (I use little color sticky dots for this exercise)
  • Discuss any surprises around the findings and then focus on those ideas that have risen to the top. While not everyone may have voted the same way, I find that in most cases the voting is consistent (rarely have I had anyone say an idea was a “1” and someone else said a “4.”

Send information beforehand. If I have a number of things to discuss and get agreement on; I send the information around to all participants beforehand so they have time to review and ask any questions about the materials. This enables them time to process and become comfortable with possible approaches to solve an issue. I find this to be most effective when I have quieter folks in a group or individuals who just need more time to be comfortable with change.

Remember – consensus does not mean that everyone in the room agrees 100% of the time with the solution or what the next steps will be. It is meant to create a solution or next steps path that is the best possible option given data available and discussions in the group.

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