Jingkan Blog

When a team comes together to make a collective decision on a professional or business matter it is very easy for the leader to fall into the temptation of sounding out views around the table and then calling for a vote. The attraction is speed and saving time. However, there are dangers. Voting splits the team into winners and losers. The losers may then be less dedicated to implementing the decisions with enthusiasm. Many successful leaders try a different route. They attempt to achieve a consensus or, in other words, a meeting of minds. If everyone can say, in effect, ‘I don’t agree with every detail but I accept the broad thrust of the decision’ then a consensus has been achieved. Although it may take longer to arrive at, a decision based on consensus has two advantages. First, if the team explores options fully and then reaches a consensus it will usually produce a better decision. Secondly, if there is a genuine consensus then each team member will feel more committed to turning the decision into action.

Some teams, in striving for a consensus, fall instead into the trap of ‘groupthink’. A US political scientist, Irving L Janis, coined this rather inelegant word. It is useful shorthand for a mode of thinking, which people engage in during discussions, when their striving for unanimity overrides their motivation to appraise options, sufficiently and realistically, before deciding what to do. Janis showed in his article, Groupthink: Psychological studies of policy decisions and fiascoes (1982), that several US foreign policy blunders in the second half of the 20th century were the result of the psychological drive for unanimity at any cost, the suppression of disagreement and the failure to appraise options thoroughly. Groupthink is always a risk in collective decision making and occurs just as readily in business teams as within government.

Some of the more common symptoms of groupthink are:

1. There are illusions of unanimity. For instance, assumptions such as ‘silence means consent’ are made.
2. There is direct pressure on team members who express arguments against the prevailing view. Inferences of lack of loyalty are common.
3. Individuals hold back from speaking against the majority view because they fear ridicule or they worry about wasting the team’s time.
4. Illusions of invulnerability exist because the team has been very successful in the past.
5. There is a strong belief in the inherent morality of the team. Paradoxically this inclines team members to ignore the ethical consequences of their current decisions.
6. Problems or obstacles are explained away. Such rationalization may lead to a failure to analyse information objectively.
7. Some individuals prevent the team from hearing adverse information that might violate a shared complacency about the justification of decisions.

The more usual causes of groupthink are:

1. The team is a highly cohesive and amiable group with strong esprit de corps. (Of course cohesion is not in itself bad, quite the contrary, but there are risks.)
2. The team leader and other senior figures, or strong personalities, dominate and also lack impartiality.
3. The team does not have methodical and objective ways of working.
4. The team is rather insulated and not sufficiently open to external influences and thinking.
5. The team members all share the same values and beliefs. (In many respects that is a good thing but as with all strengths there is also an underlying weakness.)
6. The importance of the decision, its complexity and tight deadlines all put team members under great pressure.

Typical consequences of groupthink are:

1. Objectives are not fully understood.
2. The assessment of options is superficial.
3. The risks of the preferred course of action are not examined thoroughly.
4. Options that may have been rejected previously on inadequate grounds are not reappraised.
5. Sufficient high-quality information to assist with objective analysis is not obtained.

Too little time is spent on how the chosen decision might be opposed, damaged, sabotaged or hindered by inertia. As a result, contingency plans are not prepared.

There is a selective bias in evaluating data. It often takes the form of accepting too readily those facts and opinions that support the initially preferred course of action and rejecting those that do not.

The difficult trick for team leaders is to work towards consensus and, at the same time, prevent ‘groupthink’. If ‘groupthink’ occurs then a consensus is apparent rather than real. Allowing sufficient time to deliberate on serious decisions is a prerequisite. Effective leaders encourage differences of opinions and make a point of urging their teams to explore options fully before deciding what to do.

I have noticed that, even if they don’t always succeed, good professional service leaders strive for a genuine consensus among team members. There is a world of difference between working for a consensus, and sometimes failing and having finally to resort to a vote, and taking the more cavalier approach of keeping the discussion brief and calling for a vote too early. The former is hard work but usually results in a good decision and team member commitment. The latter is easy but frequently less effective. With luck the decision might be right but enthusiastic implementation by those who voted against is far from guaranteed.

The notion of collective responsibility has its roots in an old convention of the unwritten British constitution. Collective cabinet responsibility implies that decisions freely arrived at should always be loyally supported afterwards by the ministers. Some authorities argue that this doctrine no longer applies in government. Whether that is true or not there is a great deal to be said for its application in professional service teams. Smooth and speedy execution is much easier to achieve if team members give full support afterwards for decisions in which they have had a say. It is both obvious and interesting to note that collective responsibility is much easier to achieve when decisions are based on a consensus rather than a vote. If you back the decision then it is much easier to give enthusiastic support to its implementation.

At PricewaterhouseCoopers the notions of consensus and collective responsibility are alive and well. Richard Sexton, partner in charge of the London assurance practice, says:

I try to achieve a consensus so that there is broad agreement on what we want to do. The idea is for everybody to be able to live comfortably with the decision, even if they do not agree with every last detail. It is then much easier for everyone to accept collective responsibility. Getting consensus is sometimes a struggle, especially when it involves people themselves having to change. It is much easier to achieve it when we are dealing with structures, procedures and processes. But even where it is difficult, it is right to work for it.

Richard Sexton’s colleague Richard Collier-Keywood expresses an interesting view about collective responsibility and leadership:

In this business, in my view, the best leaders are also the best followers. Take collective responsibility: we regard this as being very important. Once decisions have been taken everyone is expected to back them and neither criticize them to others nor sabotage them. That is easy to say but not always easy to do. I have to work as a team member at one level and I have my own team at another. If I accept collective responsibility as a team member, which I do, then this becomes apparent to the people in my own team. That is leadership by example and it is the best way to get the message home.

However, for teams of intelligent and well-motivated people to make good decisions they need to be skilfully led. Here are some tips to help team leaders to achieve high-quality decisions based on genuine consensus:

1. Encourage disagreement and the constructive conflict of ideas, but not personalities, in the early stages of the discussion.
2. As team leader, avoid stating your opinions early in the discussion so that others are not discouraged from giving their views. Invite the quieter members of the team to give their opinions.
3. Encourage the team to identify options and analyse the pros and cons of each. Bear in mind the importance of weighing some pros and cons more heavily than others.
4. If the team reaches deadlock, try to resolve the problem by separating facts from beliefs. It often works.
5. Steer the team towards a conclusion only after everybody has had an opportunity to contribute and after the pros and cons of each option have been assessed.

Here is a final word about using the team to make collective decisions on the more important business and professional matters. Bringing the team members together for this purpose and making the effort to achieve a genuine consensus and to avoid ‘groupthink’ has two benefits. The higherquality decisions that generally result and the commitment to their achievement have already been noted. There is also a significant by-product. Team spirit is fostered, individuals value each other’s contributions and people improve their skills in working together.