To participants in our team course here I convey four common methods for
making team decisions:
Autocratic
Democratic
Unanimous
Concsensus.
There are benefits and disadvantages to each one.
With Autocratic, its, quick, and sometimes an expert makes the decision.
On the down side, the dominant person may NOT be right. Multiple points
of view are avoided; innovation is hindered, collaboration limited.
Majority rule is relatively quidck, gains the support of a majority, and
appear fair and objective. Weaknesses include the fact that the majority
WINS, there may be a substantial minority (51% to 49%) minority may feel
little ownership and may in fact be right.
Unanimity, where 100% agreement is the best solution, has all members
committed, so implementation should go smoothly. Unfortunately, this is
very time consuming in a manufacturing environment where customer
requirements, time-to-market, and other considerations play havoc with
time. Unanimity rarely happens.
Consensus, with 100% acceptance and support of a solution (disagree and
commit), generates high-qulity decisions, increased collaboration, and
plans more likely to occur as planned. Here, too, the process is time
consuming, difficult to do, and potentially frustrating for team member.
Practice makes consensus go better. You have to start somewhere.
De-mystify the process with teams, then do it over and over again. Let
everyone know about group think up front, so that facilitator, leader and
team member alike are sensitized and aware. By so doing, IMHO, we
increase chances for successful turns of the continuous improvement wheel.
Best regards,
-- Barry Mallis bmallis@markem.comLearning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>