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Webster’s dictionary defines consensus as an agreement or understanding.  I’m often struck by the misperception in Corporate America about the true meaning of consensus, as opposed to unanimous consent or majority rule.  In this article, I plan to distinguish between reaching consensus and majority decisions and describe the role Human Resource professionals can play in bringing decision-by-consensus into their organizations.

A few years ago I was consulting with a national bakery chain, assisting with the development and facilitation of process improvement teams.  In the early stages of team development, one of the teams I worked with discussed how to better understand and improve the bread packaging process.  There was a heated discussion in one of the meetings about observing how the process currently worked.  Some team members wanted to stand beside employees as they did their job, just to watch.  Some team members wanted to videotape an entire shift as they did their work.  Other team members wanted to interview employees and ask specific questions about their work.  At the end of the meeting, the team leader called for consensus around the most-discussed observation method – videotaping people as they did their work.  All the team members agreed that the videotaping would begin with the first shift the next day, and volunteers were assigned time frames to do the videotaping.  The team leader ended the meeting, thinking that they had achieved consensus on a major decision.

Even though he personally thought videotaping was intrusive, one of the team members volunteered to take a shift to videotape.  Within five minutes of the taping process, two or three of the employees who were packaging bread complained - and accused the team member of colluding with “the man.”  Immediately, the team member disavowed any agreement with the process improvement team.  Instead, he loudly proclaimed that he told everyone this wasn’t a good idea and shouldn’t be done.  He, and the video camera, stopped taping and walked away.

The team leader only thought they had reached consensus.  In fact, they were far from it.

The good news about reaching decisions by consensus is that each participant’s perspectives and suggestions can be entertained and discussed.  The bad news about reaching decisions by consensus is that each participant’s perspectives and suggestions can be entertained and discussed.  In other words, true consensus takes time, effort, and skill on the part of the all participants.  At the end of the decision-making process, each individual must leave the room agreeing to support the final decision, even though their personal views are different from the choice made by the entire group.  If our bakery team had truly reached consensus, each individual conducting the videotape process would have been prepared to explain the team’s objectives and address questions on behalf of the team.

In our role as HR professionals, we often are included in decisions that affect individuals, groups, systems, and processes within our organizations.  We can elect to sit back and let decisions flow over us or we can facilitate true consensus.  A noble thought, you may be thinking, but exactly how do I do this?!

There are several excellent tools and techniques that are helpful for consensus building; however, I’ll select one to describe in this article.  For additional tools, my email address is included after the article – feel free to ask about them.  One technique I’ve found very useful is the combination of Affinity Diagramming and Force Field Analysis.

Affinity Diagramming is a technique that helps groups become true teams, whether they’re working on a temporary basis or long-term.  The facilitator guides the team through these steps: 

1. Identify the business problem or situation that needs to be addressed – write it on a flip chart or white board so the entire team can see it.  For example, the problem under discussion might be high turnover.

2. Provide individuals with post-it note pads and give them 3 minutes to silently generate as many ideas as they can about how to address the problem.  Each idea is written on a separate post-it and set aside in front of them.

3. At the end of 3 minutes, ask participants to take the post-its and stick them to a blank wall or white board, in no particular order.  The objective is simply to post the ideas without conversation (or judgment about any of the suggestions).

4. Next, ask participants to cluster similar suggestions together on the wall.  They’ll need to move the post-its so that ideas that seem to go together are in individual groups.  This is still done without talking – conversation only distracts people from the objective of putting ideas into affinity (like) groups.  If one idea keeps getting moved from one cluster to another, it may fit into two groups.  Give people permission to write the idea on a second post-it if necessary so it can be posted in both groups.

5. When no one feels compelled to move the post-its, consensus is reached about the category each of the suggestions fit into.  Usually, there are 5 – 7 clusters, depending on the size of the team you’re working with.  The next step is to ask a volunteer to write a descriptive sentence, after discussing this with the team, about what is covered in each cluster.  For instance, one cluster may involve ideas that address the performance management system; another cluster may involve suggestions that address the career development process.  The descriptive sentence is posted at the top of each cluster, so that at a glance everyone can see what’s covered in each affinity group.

6. One or two clusters will clearly have more post-its than the others.  The cluster with the most post-its is the suggestion that is used for the second part of the process – Force Field Analysis.

7. In Force Field Analysis, the facilitator writes the suggestion at the top of a flip chart or white board.  For example, the most-often-provided suggestion in the first part of the process may have been, “develop a multirater feedback process for director-level and above.”

8. At the top of one side of the flip chart there is a + and the other side has a -.  The facilitator asks for and notes positive forces that will support adding a multirater feedback process.  Individuals will (hopefully) offer support mechanisms such as “our VP of Operations endorses the 360 process” and “our last employee opinion survey indicated that people want multirater feedback.”  In order to address barriers to implementing suggestions, the team needs to surface them.  The facilitator notes the negative forces against implementing a multirater process under the - side.

9. The final discussion led by the facilitator is around the impact, on a scale of 1 to 3, of each of the positive and negative factors identified.  A “1” has a low impact and a “3” has a high impact.  For example, if a Vice President or CEO is supportive of a process, the impact would probably be high.  The impact numbers on each side are added after the discussion, and typically the negative forces have a higher number.  That does not mean the suggestion under discussion is not worthwhile.  It simply means that some brainstorming needs to occur to generate ways to minimize the high-impact barriers.  For example, if mid-level managers don’t like the concept of “360” evaluation, they may require coaching and education around how they can benefit.

As an HR professional, the more techniques like Affinity Diagramming and Force Field Analysis that you understand, the better position you can place yourself in as a valuable facilitator for reaching consensus.  The time to learn these techniques will be time well spent.

If you have any questions or comments on this article, feel free to contact me at Linda@gravett.com.