So how do we make good decisions and innovate better?
Margaret Thatcher once stated, "To me, consensus seems to be the process of abandoning all beliefs, principles, values and policies in search of something in which no one believes, but to which no one objects." The former British Prime Minister believed that consensus is the opposite of conviction. According to research, it turns out that she was right. Consensus is an innovation killer. In the pursuit of consensus, we make concessions and trade-offs. The process produces less original thinking and less creative outcomes. We fail to make breakthrough innovation and we wonder why.
The Value Of Dissent
Research shows that when a dissenting view is presented in a group, it raises the creativity of the group. Dissent promotes divergent thinking, enhances the quality of decision making and leads to better innovation.
Dissent is an active challenge to the majority view or consensus. It’s essentially a minority view. Dissent both liberates and stimulates our thinking. It does so whether it’s right or wrong. It helps us to become independent thinkers, not afraid to challenge the herd mentality.
Regardless of whether or not the dissenter wins or even when others believe their opinion is wrong, minority voices stimulate different types of thinking. Majority consensus stimulates a biased and convergent way of thinking, whereas minority views challenge the majority consensus and stimulate an unbiased way of thinking.
The Problem With Consensus
Creativity and good decision making are linked to generating many answers to a given problem, developing ideas in different directions and taking a diverse set of considerations into account. This is the definition of divergent thinking, whereas convergent thinking looks for a single correct solution.
According to research, the biggest material factor to poor group decision-making is the lack of divergent thinking.
Bodies of research show evidence that groups of individuals generate fewer ideas than the same number of individuals brainstorming alone. Groups produce about half as many ideas as do the same number of individuals. For creativity groups, motivation can be affected by social context such as evaluation apprehension or social or cognitive inhibition, which refers to the fear of being evaluated or judged by others. This not only inhibits thinking but it also inhibits the expression of ideas.
Another reason for suboptimal group creativity is due to lack of coordination, including the fact that not everyone can speak at the same time. Ideas not immediately expressed may be forgotten or seem less important if one has to wait to express them. Some researchers have tried to understand how to remove obstacles to creative groups. Other researchers have evaluated a more direct way to enhance group creativity. Dissent is an approach that stimulates group creativity directly.
Making Dissent Practical
We have all come across that one person in meetings who argues about everything. Perhaps it’s their personality or their need to assert control or to show off their intellect. When systematically encouraging dissent, it’s helpful to have a framework that can boost your organization’s innovation and creativity while still retaining civility.
Whether we admit it or not, we all wear our egos on our sleeves. A disagreement can be perceived as a sign of disrespect or even a personal attack.
A good starting point is to disseminate executive and employee training on group collaboration techniques. Explain the rules of engagement in group discussions. Remind people to separate the idea from the person. We can dissect ideas but we don’t place a value judgment on people. It’s helpful to have a verbal or even a visual cue such as an object that reminds everyone that we are evaluating the merits of an idea and we delineate that from the person making the argument.
It’s important to recognize that some people hate conflict. They will sacrifice their own needs for the sake of group harmony. For this archetype, remind them that it’s not about conflict but about rigor. Dissent helps us produce sharper thinking.
Sometimes even the best-facilitated meetings can still leave some feeling hurt or disrespected. If training isn’t enough, consider an anonymous collaboration approach. It can be as simple as a notepad on the cloud that doesn’t track who made the comments or changes. The anonymity liberates team members to speak their minds in a way they may not have had the courage to in person. Challenge each other, again, focusing on the ideas.
In order to produce superior decision-making, organizations must embrace authentic dissenting viewpoints.
