The Concept of Consensus

The concept of consensus describes a group decision-making process which takes the opinion of all group members into consideration and results in a general agreement. A consensus cannot be reached by voting according to the majority rule but by an open minded discussion in which all members participate. All group members should confidently voice their opinion and listen to the opinion of others. Therefore, there should be no person who inappropriately controls the decision-making process to make sure that every opinion is considered equally important. The concept of consensus requires patience and a systematic approach to avoid confusion. All parties should be willing to compromise. Nevertheless, group discussions can cause conflict. But note that conflicts can be good to initiate additional thinking and develop new ideas and problem resolution opportunities. Therefore, different views should be considered helpful rather than hindering.

Advantages of the Concept Consensus
An advantage of decision-making by consensus is that it promotes open communication. Therefore, all members are more likely to support to the decision. This requires members to listen and understand all sides of an issue. At the end a decision is made, with which all members can live. Thus, decision-making by consensus provides a win-win situation.

Disadvantages of the concept of consensus
The concept of consensus requires trust among the members to encourage sharing of information and opinion.
Moreover, it takes more time to reach a consensus than it does to make a decision by voting. This is especially true in larger groups. Therefore, the concept of consensus is most efficient in smaller groups.
Finally, decision-making by consensus requires that no member dominates the group.

In Class (04/10/08)
In class, we did a group assignment that showed us how the decision-making process by consensus works. We imagined we flew through South America when the pilot of our plane had to make an emergency landing. Landing in the jungle, nearly 100 miles away from the next city, there were only a few items left we could carry with us. We were supposed to evaluate the items in terms of their importance to our survival and to rank them accordingly. First of all, we ranked the items individually without communicating with anyone else. Afterwards, we formed groups of 4 persons to reach a consensus. My experiences in this consensus-reaching process are described in personal experiences/examples.

Personal Experience/ Examples
Referring to the group assignment described above, I experienced that decision-making by consensus is a useful approach. In our group, we had an open-minded decision, in which every group member participated. First of all, we structured our decision-making plan. Afterwards, each of us explained his general idea to solve the problem. This provided the basis for discussing the importance of each single item. In this discussion, everyone’s opinion was considered. Explaining the items’ purpose, we had much fun and laughed a lot. At the end we got a ranking which satisfied each of us.
Not all consensus-reaching processes are that successful. Actually, I experienced that it can be very stressful to reach a consensus. Sometimes, I just did not like other members of my group, which made it hard to be willing to compromise. Often, points of view were too different to find a common solution. In these situations, a compromise would have led to a result that I would not have liked at all. In those cases, it was virtually impossible to reach a consensus.

Links:

http://garywinters.wordpress.com/2008/03/17/how-to-achieve-consensus-without-beating-a-dead-horse/

http://www.msu.edu/~corcora5/org/consensus.html

http://homepages.luc.edu/~hweiman/ComingToConsensus.html