Leadership: Majority Versus Consensus - Which Is Better And Why?

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Majority Versus Consensus - Which Works Better And Why

If you are tasked with leading or commanding a team, and a group decision is called for under the circumstances (i.e., strategic planning meetings, special meetings of the board of directors, advisory sessions with your "kitchen cabinet" of advisors and experts), you must reach a decision through a discussion followed by a vote.

In voting, a majority just means the approval of the holders of greater than fifty percent of the voting interests or persons present. Consensus means a unanimous vote carved out of  brainstorming, head butting, compromise and careful crafting of the precise wording of the motion or decision to be decided upon. Consensus is generally more time-consuming and requires more wrangling, wrestling and effort to reach -- but it also means that the decision made will reflect the voice of every voting person. Unanimity is very powerful in bonding a team to itself (internally) and to the matter at issue (externally, decision by decision). Consensus requires compromise while majority usually does not.

A true consensus works better than a majority because all of the voting participants have "bought in" to the team decision. A majority, while deemed adequate to proceed along a certain path based upon a decision, leaves some participants "out in the cold" and more inclined to hamper progress or to sabotage the efforts of the majority. Frankly speaking, a majority victory leaves potential enemies in an angered, agitated or defeated state, while a consensus is the result of a true joint effort.

If you'd like to proceed along your path to achievement with the combined, cooperative and consolidated efforts of the entire team, unanimity by consensus is the surest method to keep from deviating from your master plan.

Always work toward a consensus. Always work toward compromised but all-inclusive unanimity in voting on important issues.

In closing, one of the earmarks of a great team leader is in his or her ability to moderate any topical discussions toward a consensus before a vote takes place.

Douglas E. Castle For Taking Command!




TAKING COMMAND! ACHIEVING YOUR OBJECTIVES.

http://takingcommand.blogspot.com

The Guide to self-mastery, goal-setting, strategic planning and decision making, leadership, management, contingency planning, leveraging assets, rule and domination, choosing allies, dealing with enemies, assessing risk, time management, negotiation... achieving personal authority, influence, wealth and success through total TRANSFORMATION.

Key Terms: Leadership, management, self-growth, self-mastery, personal power, career advancement, negotiation, winning, wealth, success

Leadership And Decisionmaking By Intuition

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The greatest leaders, managers, commanders and other responsible decision makers generally lead by their "gut" -- a twitterword [this latter is a Lingovation] for intuition. But how does a responsible individual differentiate between emotions (which are negative factors in decision making in a business or battlefield context) and intuition? Knowing the difference is absolutely crucial.

Click: http://bit.ly/DECIDE8









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Conflicting Agendas Are Opposing Forces

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Conflicting agendas are opposing forces, and an experienced commander or leader realizes that these conflicts (whether they are hidden agendas or adamantly-stated contentions) will create a situation of encumbered ability [in the best of cases] and of complete immobility [in the worst case].

A leader bases his or her campaign or drive on finding areas of commonality, where agendas amongst all participants intersect significantly enough that every participant is more heavily invested in the interests which unite them to the group’s stated purpose or mission than the differences which separate them. If these differences are too great, or if these differences prove to be in direct opposition or conflict, the team effort will invariably fail, and the mission will not be accomplished.

A leader or commander has an obligation at the outset of a mission to determine: whether or not there are competing or conflicting agendas or objectives, to identify them, to isolate each one (and determine the potential damage which it may do) and to state his or her findings openly and candidly, in order to give the party or parties at conflict the opportunity to either acquiesce or to depart the team.

Barring either of these possibilities, the leader has three possible means of addressing the situation prior to proceeding with the campaign objective.

1) To persuade the recalcitrant party through intelligent argument and negotiation;

2) To remove the recalcitrant party;

3) To abort the mission.

Most leaders do not have the luxury of the third option, and in practice, the second option is generally prevalent.

To cite a practical example from the landscape of business:

Say that you have an acquaintance (a professional of some sort) who has a client, and your acquaintance refers this client to you. At the outset, your acquaintance feels that he is serving his client through the ‘innocent’ referral, and your company is happy to have the opportunity to serve a new customer.

If that customer begins making demands upon your company which would cause you to either 1) deviate from your chartered objectives, or 2) lose money in the process of appeasing his or her wants and needs, you will be forced to decline the engagement, since your first allegiance must be to your company and its stakeholders.

However, your acquaintance may have a greater interest in keeping his or her client satisfied regardless of the consequences to your company. He or she may try to persuade you to take a loss, compromise your objectives or think of his or her political, social or career interests as more important than your company’s needs. He or she is actually demanding that you make a sacrifice, at your expense, for his or her benefit.

In this situation, the only course to follow is one where you explain to both the referred customer, and to the referring professional that the your company is unwilling to take on the customer’s prospective business because it is either not in conformity with your business model (or mission), or because it would cause your company to incur a loss which would be damaging to you, your company and your company’s stakeholders. And then you must peaceably part ways.
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A commander understands that the successful achievement of a goal or profitability is more important than the ballast and burden imposed by conflicting agendas and opposing forces. A commander also understands that conflicts are issues which must be expediently identified, addressed and resolved. The longer the time to resolution, the more damage incurred.

In order to accomplish anything, all agendas of all parties must be in alignment. Anything else results in either chaos or immobility, neither of which is tolerable in prosecuting a campaign or in running a profitable business.

Douglas E. Castle for The Taking Command Blog, The Internationalist Page Blog and The Braintenance Blog.

Some tags, keywords, search terms, research items, categories and labels for your further reference include:
conflict resolution, hidden agenda, conflicting agendas, team leadership, The Taking Command Blog, negotiation, achieving objectives, priorities, business, decision making, sacrifices, compromises, immobility, Blogs By Douglas E. Castle, leadership, hard choices, taking rapid action, politics in business, referrals, relationships, networking, cutting your losses.

As an end note, and generally speaking the person who asks you to make a sacrifice so that he or she may reap a benefit is not truly your ally. -DC

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Letting The 'Crowd Effect' Rule You - Facebook's Flop

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By letting the sweeping opinion of the crowd rule you, or in buying into any idea or course of action pushed by the momentum of the either ecstatic or depressed 'mob mentality,' you are delegating your decision making criteria and authority to a ship of fools. There is much to be said for making your important decisions based upon your own analysis in a quiet environment -- especially if you are brighter than the median intelligence of the crowd members. Don't 'average your intellectual and emotional IQ down.' By the way, if you are reading The Taking Command Blog, the odds are quite high that you are of significantly more than median intelligence. A wonderfully relevant example of a "You can't lose on this deal -- I'm getting in. How 'bout you?" is the recent failure of Facebook's eagerly awaited stock offering (IPO) to sputter in the fiscal gutter.

Here is a fascinating extract from an article regarding the Titanic-like Facebook investment stock price collapse from Business Insider and author/commentator Henry Blodget. Enjoy the read, and then come back here where we'll be serving coffee and desserts in the basement...
  
It's Becoming Clear That No One Actually Read Facebook's IPO Prospectus Or Mark Zuckerberg's Letter To Shareholders

As Facebook's stock continues to collapse, the volume of whining is increasing.
Four months ago, you will recall, Facebook was viewed as "the next Google." Now, with no major change in the fundamentals, it's viewed as an over-hyped disaster. Meanwhile, there is ever-louder grumbling that 26-year-old Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg is in over his head and should be relieved of command.
As I listen to all this whining, I have a simple question:
Didn't anyone even read Facebook's IPO prospectus?
The answer, I can only assume, is "no."
Because if anyone had read the Facebook IPO prospectus, they would have learned, among other things, the following:

• Facebook's growth rate was decelerating rapidly.
• Facebook's user-base was rapidly transitioning to mobile devices, which produce much less revenue.
• Facebook's operating profit margin was already an astounding 50%, which suggested it had nowhere to go but down.
• Facebook's CEO had a nearly unprecedented amount of control over the company.
• Facebook's CEO had set up this astounding level of control intentionally. Mark Zuckerberg knew all about how impatient public-market shareholders are. And he set up the whole company so he would never have to pay attention to their whining.
• In the 9 months following the IPO, insiders would be free to sell more than 2 billion shares of Facebook that they had been holding for years.
• Facebook was going public at an astoundingly high price for a company with these characteristics—about 60-times the following year's projected earnings, in a market in which other hot tech companies like Apple and Google were trading at less than 15-times. [Read more]

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Following the crowd is a mixed behavior with its roots in the complex genetics of species survival as well as in the established need (read Abraham Maslow recently?) to be accepted amongst one's peers.

Simply stated, when you follow the mob, you are simply not acting as a leader. You have surrendered your power of independent discernment to a group of strangers, and will have demonstrated, whether your gamble proves wrong or right, that you are neither strong, nor a true commander.

Making your own decisions as a leader is a lonely business. But it is a calling which draws both the best and the worst among us. For the sake of your employees, your constituents, your troops, your team and for Humanity in general, I would prefer it if you were one of the best among us.

Douglas. E. Castle for The Taking Command Blog and for The Daily Burst Of Brilliance Blog

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-stock-letter-shareholders#ixzz25bBQwzps

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Indecision:The Enemy Of Leadership

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 Each of us is faced with an incredible number of decisions, large and small, consequential and inconsequential every single day. Deciding for ourselves and deciding for others

Sometimes it feels as if there are days when we were trying to navigate a fragile vessel through an asteroid belt without getting clobbered before we've found our way to a safe landing.

Decision making comes more naturally to some of us than to others, but the one thing that we all seem to share is that the more the perceived significance of the decision (to us, and about those whom we care), the more of a challenge making a choice between alternatives becomes.

Some of us ruminate over the choices, while some of us become either paralyzed or ostrich-like, hiding our heads in the sand. Making substantial broad-reaching decisions among alternatives quickly, with a sense of commitment to our ultimate choice (whatever that choice may be) is one of the greatest skills of leadership.

While in the seat of command, you will instill a sense of confidence in your wisdom, personal power, and your overall ability to lead amongst your employees, recruits, troops, followers or even colleagues if you willingly, rapidly evaluate choices and make decisions as if they were royal pronouncements. Either you will ultimately have been right, or wrong, but no matter -- you will have exercised the courage and conviction to walk into fearsome circumstances.

If you are very conservative, if you are more frightened of the consequences of decisions than of the definitive act of expediently setting a course, you will lose your respect and standing as a leader.

Indecision is indeed the enemy of leadership.

We are are very much like children, wanting someone else to take responsibility for decisions for fear that they might be wrong -- but the person who gets the respect is always a decider.

There is neither movement nor progress when decisions are delayed or avoided by a titular commander who is afraid to play the world's most high stakes game of multiple choice.

Douglas E. Castle for The Taking Command Blog

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