Scenario: Consensus(2024)

As an action learning coach, how would you handle the following situation: The team is having trouble coming to consensus.

Tags: Action Learning, ActionLearning Coach, Team Coach, WIAL, WIAL Action Learning, WIAL Talk

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Comments (8)

  • Avatar

    trongmai

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    I would map my intervention as follows:
    1. (Re)clarify the issue: “Team, what do you think we’re all stuck at?”
    2. Common Ground: restate/highlight the areas where (some) team members agree.
    3. Building Consensus by voting/ranking/scoring options
    4. Double-check the consensus to ensure the final decision is or isn’t what everyone wanted.

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  • Avatar

    Thu DO

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    Hello team,
    Has anyone else observed that our team hasn’t come to a consensus? What is the impact on the team if we hasn’t come to a consensus? How our team decide to do next?

    Reply

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    Chasity Williams

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    Ask a question, how does the team think that the group can get to consensus? Let them work back in the group to try to ask better questions.

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  • Avatar

    Joanna Sosnowska

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    My intervention proposal is as follows:

    1. Question: What is important to you in achieving consensus? What if you don’t achieve it? What losses will you incur if you don’t reach a common position? And what benefits will you have? Therefore, what are you deciding on?
    2. If the answer is: “yes, we need it”, then: What are the best methods you know to reach a unified position? Which method has worked well for you so far? In what way are you ready now? Which one are you choosing now? How much time are you giving yourselves to make the decision?

    Reply

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    Yuki Liu

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    Firstly I would ask the team, where is our biggest point of disagreement? What courses those differences? Then I’d ask the team what would be the consequences if there’s no action plans that everyone agrees on. Finally, I would emphasized that we are ONE team and invite them to think about what we could do better as ONE team and focus on the common ground, and draft out action plans based on the common ground.

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    Derek Laout

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    – Clarify Goals: I would start by ensuring that everyone agrees on the goals of the discussion by having each team member share their understanding of the goal.
    – Use Facilitating Questions: I would ask questions that help view the situation from different perspectives, such as: “Can each of you describe a possible positive outcome from another’s suggestion?”
    – Explore Alternatives: If consensus is hard to reach, I would ask the team to come up with alternative solutions or compromises that could be acceptable to everyone.

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  • Avatar

    Elizabeth Webb

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    As an Action Learning Coach, I would want to use this situation as a learning opportunity by guiding them along in deeper reflection. If we have yet to have our first check in, I would jot this down as the learning opportunity to bring up after checking in. If we are past our first check in, I would go ahead and initiate our next one. In either case I would ask, “How does the team feel we are doing with reaching consensus?” Upon hearing their responses, I would ask two follow up questions (1) What are the benefits of the team reaching consensus? and (2) what actions can we take to help the team reach consensus? The answers may also present the opportunity for the team to set a rule or use a different resource available to them.

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    Paul Monax

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    If the team is having difficulty coming to consensus, then they still don’t have a common understanding of what the problem is.
    The team needs to work off of each other and ask great questions. They need to get further clarification on wha the problem actually is, and that requires more questions, better questions, and continuation questions that dive deeper to get to the real problem they are trying to solve.

    Reply

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