They say it takes too much time. They describe the painful details of the myriad ways in which group members polarize on issues and then threaten to use their veto power when they don’t achieve their individual purposes.

I find these processes distasteful myself. They take up too much time and can definitely sap participants’ energies.

But these are not consensus processes — they are debate processes.

To achieve rapid consensus it’s essential that group members gather around a clear, shared purpose and then mobilize around a sense of urgency to make progress together.

In my experience, the following five practices fuel fast decision-making:

1. Consider more rather than fewer alternatives. And generate them together. Teams that move fast know that generating lots of alternatives actually clarifies decision-making. Criteria for choosing among them then surface in the group and, in the process, myriad contingencies are aired and shared.

Trying to analyze and choose between only two (or even three) alternatives stresses making the “right decision” (choosing between opposite poles), which can easily trigger parochialism and paralysis.

2. Involve more people and points of view in the process. When a large number of participants are heard, unique points of view can emerge, which actually increases the probability of discovering creative and expansive alternatives.

3. Integrate with more and/or other parts of the organization. Teams that move fast invite other departments to participate. Doing so enables them to coordinate in real-time, rather than learning after the fact and then having to play catch up. An added bonus is that other departments may actually bring better solutions.

4. Draw on the wisdom of “gray-hairs.” Teams that move fast check their thinking with mentors, sponsors, or coaches whose experience, intuition, and situational knowledge helps the team make smart choices.

5. Consensus with leader as time-breaker. The secret to leading consensus successfully is to establish collective action as more important to the group than complete and total agreement. To fast teams, getting a result and learning from it together is more important than being right. Fast teams also make sure that everyone is heard, especially minority views.

A smart consensus-focused leader will create “hang-time” in the conversation to allow for this. Then, if a consensus doesn’t emerge in a reasonable time, the leader makes a call for group action on the alternative with the best chance of succeeding.

This Week’s 5-Minute Practice Tip

This week, include more voices in decisions that affect others. And stress the urgency of action, steering away from “right versus wrong” arguments (use “Works for me” instead). Keep asking the group, “What could move us forward together?” but start your practice on less-than-critical decisions.

Everyone has experience with this issue. Tell me yours in the comment space below.

Christopher Avery, PhD, is a recognized authority on how individual and shared responsibility works in the mind and an advisor to leaders worldwide. Build a responsible team (or family) and master your leadership skills with The Leadership Gift Program for Leaders.

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On September 2, 2011 I was in Ashtabula, Ohio where I lived from the age of 7 into my college years. The high school alumni association called me to be inducted into their Hall of Fame for my work with the Responsibility Process and Leadership Gift.

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Other honorees included Captain Jed Larsen, (me), Vicki Sussman, Francis Montanaro, Craig Walrath, Paul Lewis (represented by his daughter). Not pictured are James Bollman and Dr. William Evans.

We each addressed the high school juniors and seniors (I showed a couple of Thom’s Responsibility Man videos.) Then we were treated to a luncheon as well as honored at the fifty yard line during the season-opening football game that evening.

Thanks to my wife Amy, son Thom, and brother Fred for traveling with me; to Stuart and Kim Cordell for hosting us; and to Virginia Buona and Norma Lillie — my second Mom’s during all those years — for attending.

The link in Scott’s tweet takes you to this chart.

I’m honored to be in the company of Chet Hendrikson, Ron Jeffries, Jeff Patton, Ashley Johnson (my scheduled co-presenter who gave this session last year), Jonathan Rasmusson, and Mary Poppendieck — agile rock stars.

To put this in perspective, 16oo people attended a reported 300 sessions over 4 days. That puts our session in the top 1%. What’s that mean? An ownership mindset and culture is on lots of people’s minds.

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Client and colleague Lloyd Glick uses design software for his machine tool business near Lancaster, Pennsylvania. He sent me the attached graphic inspired by a heart breaking story.

Lloyd explains:

Artwork is usually based on a thought or inspiration…… maybe a struggle or victory. Or to keep it simple, based on a feeling. This ‘creation’ is based on a feeling I have.

He went on to tell a story of heartbreak for a relative who is struggling in life. Lloyd sees this person stuck in the position of justify which is reinforced by those around him. The artwork is a metaphor for being stuck in a cage of one’s own choosing.

Thank Lloyd.

I’m proudly thinking “No.”

Thom cooked up this video idea in June, while accompanying me to a Houston event. He enjoys developing characters and thinks he may want to be a director.

Apologies to machinima.com if this mash-up infringes on the copyright.

Comment to encourage Thom to direct more adventures of Responsibility Man.

Download a PDF of this presentation.

This workshop was part of a Managed Leadership Gift Adoption program to develop an culture of responsible leadership so agile and lean methods will flourish in the enterprise.

This video speaks for itself.

To learn more about the Knowledge Team Leadership workshops Christopher Avery offers, please go here.

Here is a “kudos” received soon after the show:

I submitted a question for your Tuesday broadcast yesterday. This was the one about knowing something logically yet not actually incorporating into your actions – self-sabotaging.

I just wanted to let you know I did hear your broadcast and really appreciated your response. Your answer was terrific!  Yes, I took notes! And am starting my Responsibility Practice TODAY!

Thank you for your great ideas, perspectives and most of all for being willing to go over this information again and again until we “get it”. We do have the best of intentions, but being human, we tend to rationalize and find we have drifted so far away, or just plain “forgot” our intent.  You are exactly right – this needs to be a daily practice with it “in your face” and I really like the accountability of the score-keeping game.

I have down-loaded the poster as you suggested on the call and am putting copies in several places to remind me. I have your book as well.

Thank you so very much for sharing yourself and your perspective. And please keep those great tips coming.

I would also like to comment on your post of Jan 6, which I just read yesterday, about taking a stand on integrity. That you would not accept an assignment to “change them” if the executive wasn’t willing to “change self” first.  The next sound you hear will be that of a standing ovation from this end!
<sound of thunderous applause>

May integrity be the next viral marketing! May it spread through our leadership at an unprecedented rate and may it give corporate leaders the backbone to make the hard decisions they have avoided for so long -OR- to move on to something else and let people of integrity fill their shoes. Please understand that I don’t mean that as blame! Just as facing facts!

You sir, are definitely one of those people of integrity with a very valid moral compass and stand as a shining example.  Thank you!

~ Alissa Beeler, Tennessee

Thank you Alissa. I appreciate feedback, and especially feedback that tells me to stay the course.

Here are the questions I addressed in this segment:

Q: I know logically many of these things. My struggle is to actually reprogram my mind to these new ideas and ways of thinking and not self-sabotage my efforts. Can you offer some advice to help me get these new ideas to replace/reprogram the old ones?

Q: What is you’re book about?

Q: Is there a difference is your processes when dealing with children rather than adults? If yes, to take it further is there a difference in younger children vs. say teenagers in the thrall of hormone swings? Trying to achieve work life balance includes dealing with these issues at home.

Q: How old would you suggest a child / teen be in order to begin to learn about personal – shared responsibility and 100% ownership, and how would you suggest beginning to help them learn (i.e., teach) about it?

Q: As a parent, I want to let my children (young adults, in my case) decide for themselves, take responsibility, see the consequences of their choices – respecting their freedom and dignity as persons – but yet I keep asking myself, “How can I tell them this so they will understand the value or the good sense of it, so they will make the right choice”, or “I need to remind them of this, in case they forgot”, or “Have I already told them this? If not, I need to….” — because I feel it is my responsibility as a parent to teach them and to pass on any wisdom gained. And so it feels like a never-ending battle. What would be a better approach?

Would you rather be prescient or resilient?

“Prescience” means literally (from the Latin) “to know before” as in seeing the future by whatever means. “Resilience” means the ability to recover, to bounce back.

The 5-year-old in me that wants to get away with everything would prefer prescience. But the grown-up wise old sage in me agrees that resilience rocks, especially since so little about the world turns out to be truly foreseeable.

A wonderful post appears today on the Leadership Now Leading Blog about the leadership philosophy of Booz Allen Hamilton Chairman & Chief Executive Officer Ralph W. Shrader. He says essentially that there’s been a lot in his leadership career that he did not see coming (i.e., prescience) and that he owes his success to his resilience, or the ability to respond to what happens.

You know where I’m going with this

Resilience is the cousin of responsibility—response-ability, the ability to respond. The Leading Blog post reminded me of all the different permutations of a quoted philosophy that I’ve been collecting over the years. Essentially the philosophy says this: You can’t always control what happens to you; but you can control how you respond to what happens to you.

Here are a few related quotes

“The greater danger for most of us is not that our aim is too high and we miss it, but that it is too low and we reach it.” Michelangelo Buonarroti, 1474-1564, Italian Renaissance Painter and Sculptor

“If you think about disaster, you will get it. Brood about death and you hasten your demise. Think positively and masterfully, with confidence and faith, and life becomes more secure, more fraught with action, richer in achievement and experience.” Eddie Rickenbacker, 1890-1973, American Fighter Ace, Race Car Driver and pioneer in air transportation.

“Before you begin a thing remind yourself that difficulties and delays quite impossible to foresee are ahead. You can only see one thing clearly, and that is your goal. Form a mental vision of that and cling to it through thick and thin.” Kathleen Norris, 1880-1966, Novelist

“Things turn out best for the people who make the best of the way things turn out.” Art Linkletter, Radio and TV Personality

“Winners are losers who got up and gave it one more try.” Dennis DeYoung, Rock Musician and Songwriter

“If you believe you can, you probably can. If you believe you won’t, you most assuredly won’t. Belief is the ignition switch that gets you off the launching pad.” Denis Waitley, Author, Speaker and Trainer

“To increase your success, double your failure rate” Thomas Watson, founder of IBM

“I’m sure another solution will present itself.” Qui-Gon (Star Wars character)

“All things in this world and beyond are illusions created by one’s own concepts. Grasping at them but further distorts perception. Give up grasping and see things as they are.” Kelzang Gyatso, 7th Dalia Lama

“People only complain about things they can do something about but have chosen not to.” Jack Canfield, best-selling author and success expert

“I’ve never done anything in business that I knew how to do when I started.” Overheard at a Mastermind group