Just how easy is it to help people in teams come to decisions which they all agree on? Anthony Landale highlights a new approach that moves teams toward consensus, fast.

Why can’t people agree? It’s an old complaint but just how much time and energy is spent in your organisation getting people to pull in the same direction? And what would you give to have a fast and effective way to help teams reach consensus?

According to Clive Lewis, managing director of illumine, that solution is within reach. “All that is required is an approach that harnesses people’s collective intelligence and gives them a sense of real ownership for team decisions that need to be taken.

“This is the premise behind our new training programme, RapidConsensus. In simple terms it teaches managers and leaders how to help teams to work together co-operatively on key decision-making issues, by teaching specific facilitation skills which are targeted at engaging the whole team, collecting all viewpoints, getting the team to consider what their options are and then identifying what actions need to be taken.”

Own what you create

This sounds simple enough so what is the magic ingredient?The secret is based in the understanding that people own what they help to create. In other words, people need to feel engaged and enthusiastic about an outcome before they commit to it. Just imposing a decision will inevitably fail to engage people’s energy or motivation.

RapidConsensus recognises that the brightest and most articulate people do not have all the answers. In fact a room left to its own devices will tend to work on less than 50 per cent of the information and knowledge available. So the inescapable conclusion here is that the best decisions are those where everyone has an input.

Expert facilitation

The facilitator’s skill in this process is especially key. Some people think that facilitation is all about being nice, all about making things easy. It isn’t. Expert facilitation is in fact something of a high-wire experience. There is no set script and you have to be able to respond to whatever is going on with the people you are working with. If that means dealing with conflict, challenging people or pointing out unpalatable truths then so be it.

In essence, facilitation is necessary in business because it is understood that the process of how something gets done can often get in the way of the task itself. So while individuals within a team may be extremely talented and motivated this doesn’t mean that they know how to work together effectively.

RapidConsensus helps managers work with this dynamic. For example, it teaches participants techniques to help ensure maximum involvement and harnesses all available insights.

It also teaches participants the way in which a facilitated approach can help a team to identify the future that they want to create. What this means in practice is getting people to articulate as powerfully as possible where they want to get to.

This is important because there are many more creative possibilities in the future than there are in the present. To paraphrase Einstein: “You cannot solve problems with the same level of thinking that got you here.”

In the process of such breakthrough thinking, it is the facilitator’s role to listen to everything and remain neutral. People come into the room from many different viewing platforms, for example production, marketing, sales, maintenance, administration, and all see the world and the problems within it through their own lens. However it is the combination of all these perspectives which provides a whole view of the situation.

As Lewis explains: “We teach participants those facilitation skills that elicit the best information and knowledge available. This requires facilitators to operate as an open conduit, encouraging different views and perspectives and treating all people with equal respect and space.”

Pace and quality

So will such a facilitated decision making process lead to the best decisions being taken?

This is a pertinent point but, according to Lewis, the process not only leads to better decisions it leads to faster decisions being taken too.

“We all have a rapid cognition capability that works best under time pressure. Once the team environment becomes a safe place for people to offer and explore ideas then the ability of the team to process complex information and make decisions speeds up.

“We have also found that when they are working at pace the team will start to experience lateral leaps in thinking which characterises the creative process. Well facilitated teams surprise themselves with the speed with which they can collectively process information and make decisions – and experience has shown us that the quality of these decisions is high as continued progress is made after the workshop.”

In essence the promise of RapidConsensus is that it helps teams to make good and fast decisions which everyone can get behind. And it does this by getting everyone to start together and talk together. As economic guru John Kay said: “Despite the internationalisation of markets, despite air travel, despite information technology there are still things done best by people who find themselves in the same room”.

For more information, contact illumine on 01753 866633 or visit www.illumine.co.uk