How To Get Consensus in the Team Without the Members Noticing it

By: Hans Bool
Submitted: 2007-01-17 12:45:42
Print this article | Tell a friend | For publisher | Social Bookmarking
Rating:
 

Those who are not in favor of systematic approaches and methods should read about this way to facilitate the communication process.

Communication is a very wide area, but normally includes the process of a group of people that are exchanging ideas or thoughts. Now, how would you structure such a process? Imagine that there are eight team members of which you would like to know the individual opinions. People get easily influenced in a discussion. Sometimes your opinion is not finished, but being assembled as you go through an (interview) process.

Also for the sake of the team you do not want an individual opinion make that others keep quiet, because they do not quite agree. The communication market is a market like any others with a demand and supply side. And too much supply of a single opinion will get the communication unbalanced.

In such a case where individual opinions are important, the diversity and variety of feedback is needed you should make the individual input anonymous.

Then, when every team member could give their personal input irrespective of what others have uttered (even without knowing this) you are ready for a first group feedback. Again, you present the group results in an anonymous way; not letting know who has said what. Then, based on your own input and what you observe as additional feedback from your colleagues you are offered a new round to reply. Having seen others opinions you can separate your input from these or as you are convinced that the majority will be right you can connect to the consensus that is being formed.

Doing so requires an ambience in which each respondent is able to provide anonymous input, an independent facilitator who is steering this process and a few rounds to get an opinion which is shared by the group.

And this is nothing new, not an invention, but a proved method; the Delphi method.

© 2006 Hans Bool

Hans Bool is the founder of Astor White a traditional management consulting company that offers online management advice. Astor Online solves issues in hours what normally would take days. You can apply for a free demo account

Article source: Expert Articles

Most Recent Articles in Team Building category

  • Team Building Enhances Motivation Skill - By: Shijina Shijina
    An organization is required to frame effective team in order to achieve the company goal more successfully. If an organization is looking build a strong team, then at first proper goal setting should be compiles.
  • Employee Recognition Gift Ideas - By: Angel Cruz
    In a company, it's important to recognize employees for their hard work. And what better way to thank and appreciate them, than to give them recognition gifts?
  • The Top 10 Reasons Your Staff Wants to Quit - By: Tarsem Singh
    From an employee's perspective, management often conducts itself in ways that make no sense. When the economy is slow, jobs are few and far in between or people are fearful, staff will tolerate management behaviors and policies that are nonsensical (in their eyes) or they judge are harmful.
  • Our Top Ten Team Building Exercises - By: Amy Linley
    Given the varied personalities, communication skills and personal agendas individual members bring with them to the team, getting your team to work cooperatively can be a challenge.
  • Custom E-learning Solutions - By: Amjad Ali
    About CommLab India is a Custom eLearning Solutions Company based in India. Since 2000, it has been providing state-of-the-art eLearning services to organizations across the world in the areas of Learning Consultancy, Custom Courseware and Learning Technology. Some of our reputed clients are BC Hydro, George Washington University, Kawasaki and Deloitte. We are preferred vendors to some of the Fortune 500 companies like Alcoa and Hill-Rom.
  • Corporate Training - By: Amjad Ali
    With technological strides and encouraged by the need to get the best out of domain experts, corporate training has come to gain its own place in the sun. Organizations now feel the need to move to a high-paced zone of learning speed which is effective to learners and comes at a reasonable price to organizations. This new form of learning now prevalent in companies is called e-learning. For companies seeking big time change, to outsource the learning function is a tried and tested approach.
  • Helpful Tips to Motivate Your Employees - By: William King
    This article provides tips which will help the owner of a business to motivate his employees effectively, especially by interacting with them personally, and by maintaining good working conditions.
  • The Joy of Collaboration and High Performing Teams - By: Stephen James Joyce
    Training that grows people and teams in tandem is the secret of most successful organizations. You are frying two fish in the one pan. Beyond growing the individual the team requires a reason to exist and know its prime function.
  • Assessment To Success: Interviewing For Winning Teams! - By: Jeff Magee
    In most business realities today, when an opportunity presents itself for a manager to add a new complimentary player to a team, this opportunity is most often fumbled. The newly acquired player to the existing team is not objectively acquired as a asset that can truly COMPLIMENT and add to the team's strengths, by filling an existing weakness. Many times, the new player is simply a different shade of what already exists.
  • Team Building Activities - By: Crizza Reyes
    Team Building Activities are stimulating problem-solving tasks designed to help group members develop their capacity to work effectively together. Many team building and initiative tasks are like kids games, others are novel, complex tasks and designed for specific needs.