James Shepherd-Barron
Latest posts by James Shepherd-Barron (see all)
- HOT FROGS and the monetization of money - 3rd March 2021
- CoVid Lessons Un-Learned - 29th January 2021
- HOLE IN THE WALL (Book Extract) - 18th January 2021
REALITY CHECK: This text is from a recruitment ad for the CEO of an international NGO which appeared recently in The Economist magazine. It could just as well have been written for a disaster manager or coordinator … “To ensure effective decision-making, you will have proven strategic communications skills, including the ability to create consensus through active debate and logical argument in a challenging environment, and effectively resolve conflicts.”
The key word in this advertisement is ‘create’. Building consensus requires that Cluster participants share information, air differences, work together to analyse challenges and find mutually acceptable solutions. After a decision has been reached, all those participating should feel that their viewpoint was heard and understood, and that they heard and understood the viewpoints of others in the group. They will support it because it was arrived at in an open and fair way. Yet reaching such a consensus is difficult in “standing-room only” coordination meetings attended by representatives of 50 or more agencies. In such large unwieldy groups, it is
Be aware that genuinely consensual decision-making within Clusters — that state of Nirvana where universal agreement is reached — is not possible in a context of competitive funding and the consequent drive for results-based action. The direct result is:
- Information silos
- Weakened planning
- Inefficiency through lack of economy-of-scale
- Reduced effectiveness of action through poor quality assurance
- Diminished accountability
Too often, consensus management is seen as a process in mediocrity where a one-eyed man leads the blind in “a race to the bottom of the barrel” i.e in a process of identifying a solution that is the least offensive to all, rather than choosing the course of action that is most beneficial to all … in this case, to those directly affected by disaster.
Real consensus management — the type practiced by most commercial companies, for example — is not about that at all; it is a genuine management discipline, the rules of which have to be learned.
Consensus management means that when a decision is reached by the group, there is total commitment to it by all members. It does not necessarily mean the decision was reached easily or that there were not widely differing views shared and debated during the group’s discussion. But once consensus is formally achieved, division of opinion (so far as that decision is concerned) should cease.
To reach consensus, the group must be strongly supportive of the mission, goals, strategy and standards to be applied. This rests upon the basic conviction that people are honest, competent, and genuinely care about the work of the group, not just their own organisation.
But what is consensus? Consensus is finding a proposal acceptable enough that all members can support it. If someone cannot support a proposal, they are asked, “What could be changed so that you can support it?” It is not a majority vote. In a majority vote, those in the minority may get something they don’t want at all. After a decision has been reached, all members of the group should feel that their viewpoint was heard and understood, and that they heard and understood all other viewpoints of the group. They will support it because it was arrived at in an open and fair way.
Reaching consensus requires time, the active participation of all group members, and communication skills: listening, conflict resolution, creative thinking and open-mindedness.
There is a difference between participatory management and consensus management. Those taking part in SAG and Working Group discussions frequently get this wrong. Participatory managers recognise a foundational management principle: authority and responsibility can be delegated, but accountability cannot. Participatory managers seek input from all whose views can benefit the process. However, final decision-making is reserved to those who ultimately bear the responsibility for the decision. As it is the Head of the CLA who is ‘accountable’ for whatever the Cluster decides, and not the Cluster Coordinator, it is hardly surprising that this person might object to having decisions foisted on his or her organisation by people (s)he does not know and over whom (s)he has no oversight or control. This is a fundamental design flaw in the entire Cluster enterprise which only ‘trust’ will overcome.
“Responsibility means ensuring that the job gets done, not necessarily doing it yourself.”
Consensus managers, on the other hand, start with the proposition that agreement among all stakeholders must be obtained before action can proceed, a position that is intellectually defensible only if one believes that all stakeholders are equal and will suffer the same consequences as you if a poor decision is made. When the consequences of this assumption are considered, it becomes clear that:
- Decision-making becomes a political process instead of a merit-based process with the pace and outcome controlled by the least flexible and most obdurate participants.
- Consensus management is inherently biased toward inaction. All that is necessary to block any action is to prevent consensus. Self-evidently, this characteristic is not conducive to success in a competitive environment defined by fast-paced change.
- Decision quality is degraded, at least from a purely humanitarian perspective. That is because the goal becomes identifying a solution that is the least offensive to all stakeholders rather than choosing the course of action that is most beneficial to the enterprise (this is the so-called, “Race to the bottom of the barrel”).
- An inevitable consequence of using consensus as a surrogate for the executive function in an organization designed to operate as a hierarchy is a diminution of the very concept of accountability. When everyone is responsible, no one is accountable.
This is not to say that consensus management is never a good idea. In a SAG of true peers, all of whom share a common skill set, the same organisational perspective, and an identical stake in the decision outcome, it can work well. The trick is to avoid “racing to the bottom of the barrel” and to make sure that whatever is written in the strategy document is not so ambiguous that it becomes meaningless.
For more on Cluster Coordination, contact the author on [email protected]