Setting the stage

Whenever possible, especially when listing factors that come out of a group session, the use of priorities is helpful. For instance, there may be things that fall into the "want" list that need to be ranked so a great deal of time isn't wasted negotiating toward perfection when it's often unachievable. 

One technique that can help a facilitator of any mediation or a consensus process is the pre-survey. In it, for instance, each participant is asked to list five desired outcomes, but also rank each of those desired outcomes on a scale (e.g., 1-10). This gives the moderator a great deal of information ahead of time. If a particular desired outcome is mentioned by someone in the actual meeting and it hasn't appeared in anyone's survey, the facilitator can mention that and ask for consensus on regarding that stated desired outcome as beyond the scope of the current process. Of course, if a groundswell seems to be growing to include it, that is a time to flex and even reformulate the proposal under consideration.

The same logic applies to a desired outcome mentioned by a few participants but ranked low (1-4). Honing in on what matters most to most of the participants can both honor the longer consensus process but also make it more efficient. 

Having said that, the facilitator needs to see if something can go to the participants who listed that desired outcome, ranked it lower, and are then asked to give up on getting it done. Do those people seem to share one or more desired outcomes they rank very highly? If so, the facilitator can test it to the group by saying something like, "Correct me if I'm wrong, but what I'm hearing is that some of you have a high priority on addressing racism in our organization and a somewhat lower priority on achieving great fiscal position. Some of you might flip that priority. Is there a way to achieve enough of both to feel successful?"

This is harder without an outside expert facilitator, but if one of the organization is also the facilitator, it should be someone with fewer strong opinions, so the facilitator isn't frequently taking an advocacy stance, which can corrode the perception of a decent process.  

What about consensus in massive complex government projects?

In complex government projects some innovative consensus methods have helped to reduce non-expert but fully stakeholder conflict with experts by a modified consensus approach that seeks the basic elements of consensus but in a streamlined fashion to reduce the high costs of a longer, classical consensus process. This may not only reduce costs and timelines on the front end, but may very well reduce subsequent resistance and slowdowns from the classical command-and-control approach.

"In this way, collective intelligence across different subgroups of society can be leveraged simultaneously, involving experts and non-experts, called heterogeneous decision-makers in this study" (Singh, Baranwal & Tripathi, 2023, p. 3936).

References

Singh, M., Baranwal, G., & Tripathi, A. K. (2023). A novel 2-phase consensus with customized feedback based group decision-making involving heterogeneous decision-makers. Journal of Supercomputing, 79(4), 3936–3973. https://doi-org.proxy.lib.pdx.edu/10.1007/s11227-022-04796-7

Who should decide?

Consensus is a slow process, and is usually reserved for the decisions that require real buy-in and commitment to follow through. It is the day-to-day minor decisions that don't benefit from that time requirement that shouldn't be a consensus process. We make those decisions every day in our families, in our work, and in our community affairs. So part of the art in leadership is figuring out when to flatten that hierarchy and engage in a process that is more inclusive than any other, consensus. The decision spectrum is, in a simplistic sense: 

Command-and-control_______representative democracy________consensus process

Each of these models is good for something and absolutely terrible at other things. The extremists who want one and only one are not wise, just doctrinaire. We see that in politics but also in so many areas of life. 

Feel a draft? Be a peace church.

Of course we will never have a world free from conflict, but we can radically reduce destructive conflict while engaging in constructive, creative conflict.

Social norms are important, and of course they are fed by home life, school life, all forms of media, and the norms of all organizations to which we belong. 

For example, some years ago I testified to a church council as they considered whether to formally declare that the Just War Doctrine was antithetical to their faith. I made two primary points: 

1. The Just War Doctrine requires a nation to exhaust all avenues before launching a war. Since there are literally hundreds of potential nonviolent acts of resisting injustice, it is essentially impossible to satisfy that criterion. 

2. Any faith that officially rejects the Just War Doctrine is not only changing its own internal practices, norms, and culture, it also protects its young people against conscription into an unjust war. For example, during the Vietnam War there was a draft and young men who were born and raised in one of the historic peace churches--most Quaker sects, many Anabaptist sects, and other recognized sects--those young men were virtually always granted Conscientious Objector status. Of course they could go off to war if they wished, but they were not usually conscripted.

Conflict on the team

Continuing to draw the naturally divergent views on how to achieve a goal back to the basic shared interest of everyone is a way to ground the conversation in civility and shared purpose. Whether someone is a facilitator or simply a participating member of a work team, reminding everyone that we share more than we don't is one factor in keeping the contamination of egos and stubbornness at a minimum.

Doing so is always easier when we can credit others with that reminder, e.g., "I for one appreciate our search for the best way to serve our clients, as Kerry reminded us last week. All these ideas are pointed toward that one mandate and even when we seem to disagree we are all just seeking that same good outcome." Everyone thus shares in the credit and is less alienated by the process.

A role that was a part of a large group I worked with back in the 90s was Vibeswatcher. One person, who also participated in the group process, was tasked with just looking at body language, tone, side communications, and general emotional content of the group and group members. They had no direct input into facilitation unless they felt the emotional content was getting seriously escalated. Then they had the power to interrupt the process, make their observations, and the group attempted to find ways to deescalate. This is especially valuable in larger groups with one or more verbose speakers, as the emotional signs frequently begin to come from those who feel unheard, not called on, or shut out. 

The power of one vs groupthink

 Groupthink may be the biggest threat to our species in some ways, especially when it is augmented by the notion you mention, that, as "everybody knows," one person can't really do much. 

Rosa Parks was just one seamstress in one town in the South, but she sparked a movement that showed others what one person can do, offering a model that others emulated for a decade of nonviolent civil rights victories.

Greta Thunberg was just one Swedish girl in her teens, but she sparked a movement that sent thousands of schoolchildren out of school and into the streets in "Climate Strike Fridays," even resulting in insults from Trump when he was in the White House.

Julia Butterfly Hill was just one preacher's daughter from the South who climbed a Redwood tree that was slated to be cut down by a corporation taking down old growth Redwoods faster than ever. She stopped it, saved the tree, and launched a national movement to fight against logging the last of the old growth. 

A group of high school kids from Florida who had survived a mass shooting that killed 17 of their classmates refused to just be another group of young victims and they grew a movement in the US that drew millions into the streets to protest the easy availability of assault rifles. Now they are affecting dozens of races for seats in Congress to get gun control advocates in office.

Does standing up against the odds always work? No, and that's not the question. Can it work? Yes, and there are many more examples. When "everybody knows" feels wrong, it just might be. 

Striving for consensus: when the work is a burden

Whether the decision under consideration is one of public policy, institutional policy, or corporate policy, the traps that doom consensus are only avoided when two things happen. 

1. Facilitation is skilled. 

2. Those included in the process have honest and beneficial intentions. 

So, for example, when the actual effort is being put forth to use a robust consensus process, that implies that the time has been set aside to pursue it properly. This hearkens back to an original decision made by the person or small group of people to actually engage in a consensus process. 

Overuse of this can lead to frustrated groups who rush things. When an executive decision can get something accomplished in a relatively minor question, but people are put through a rigorous process of seemingly endless discussion and debate over minor issues, consensus begins to look like a chore and a waste of time. A balanced approach, with all minor decisions simply made by the person tasked with that authority, and a serious consensus process undertaken only in the truly weighty decisions, gives consensus its proper role.