4 ms·
I worked for a Japanese company. They had a consensus-based system that was fairly unique (to Americans). Lots of meetings, and pretty “spirited” discussions d
by ChrisMarshallNY 9mo ago
I worked for a Japanese company. They had a consensus-based system that was fairly unique (to Americans).
Lots of meetings, and pretty “spirited” discussions during those meetings.
However, once consensus was reached, everyone fell in behind it, and supported it unequivocally. No “hidden resistance.”
One of the drawbacks to consensus decisions, though, is that everyone can agree on a crap decision.
There’s even an old fallacy about it, called The Abilene Paradox[0].
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abilene_paradox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abilene_paradox
- pstuart 9mo agoThat approach is not without merit, however, it's still a possible dead end. I see this pattern happen consistently even with really good engineers: * Identify a problem and design a solution for it * Apply the solution and it fixes the problem * Later a problem occurs with the solution, so * Apply a fix for that solution's problem * Later another problem happens somewhere in the "solution chain" and the same repair cycle is applied At a certain point, it's worth revisiting the original problem and its original solution and see if there's a better way to address it (especially with all the lessons ostensibly learned in the solution chain).