Strive for Commitment, not Consensus

Recent news suggesting that GOP presidential candidates Marco Rubio and Ohio Gov. John Kasich were rethinking their pledge to support the eventual GOP nominee should that nominee be Donald Trump reminds me of a couple of interesting concepts in team and organizational development (more about the GOP primary later).

The Search for Consensus
A common misconception about high performing teams is that they must be efficient at reaching consensus on matters of group concern as well as in their decision-making. This belief holds that such teams are somehow usually able to “agree-to-agree” and to choose a course of action that the team wholly or in large part agrees to.

The Merriam-Webster online dictionary defines consensus as “a general agreement about something: an idea or opinion that is shared by all the people in a group”.

It would seem logical that being able to frequently reach consensus on a team would be a positive indicator of the health of the team and of its performance potential.

However, the diversity of experience, potentials and opinions that are pivotal to top team performance would make reaching consensus consistently a most difficult objective on any healthy, high performing team. Often, what is mistaken for consensus are merely team members being browbeaten into taking a popular position, or lacking any interest in taking a position, and paying nothing but lip service to the team’s decision. They thus do not execute the team’s decision with the enthusiasm and energy it needs to overcome obstacles, and succeed.

Commitment
There is an abundance of research, as well as anecdotal evidence in contemporary business literature showing that what high performing teams strive for, and are efficient at reaching is commitment. Commitment is defined as "a promise to do or give something; a promise to be loyal to someone or something; the attitude of someone who works very hard to do or support something".

Commitment is a team behavioral principle that implies an acceptance by team members to move forward with the team’s decision; it suggests owning the decision, and acting upon it though one might have held a different view or preferred a different course of action.

Commitment as a principle does not develop by itself but exists on a team in an environment supported by other equally important behavioral principles, including a healthy tolerance for conflict and diversity of thought and experience, trust in team members, as well as a willingness to be vulnerable in the presence of one’s team members.

On teams where the principle of commitment is well understood and practiced, members recognize that their individual opinions matter and are heard as well as respected. They also trust the membership and leadership of the team enough to support decisions that are made outside of their usual deliberative process, as it might sometime be exigent based on developments in the business landscape.

Hence, what we should strive for in our team building effort is (amongst other things) developing a spirit of commitment on the team, rather than straining for the elusive consensus.

Back to the GOP Primaries
The coming weeks will show whether the GOP’s efforts to build commitment and support for its primary nominee has been effective. However, it is fair to say that between Donald Trump’s frequent threats to break the support pledge if he is "not treated fairly" by the GOP, and the more recent suggestion from Rubio and Gov. Kasich that they might not support Trump if he emerges as the nominee, it is obvious that it takes more than signing a piece of paper to build commitment for a cause.

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About: I write about technology, business strategy, leadership, team performance as well as the development and optimization of human potential.