How to Encourage Consensus-Finding?

Question

I'm at a point where I realize that our meetings are too little about finding good solutions where every team member helps, and too much of "two sides and finally a winner".I strongly despise empty "we need to find a consensus" rhetoric, but I'm wondering: there must be tried and true mechanisms and techniques to encourage people to give up entrenched positions.We recently had pol.is on the front page which made me think of it again. But I'm mostly not searching for a tool.What are key words I could search for? The moderation and coaching literature is really vast, and I don't have a good sense of what is practical and valuable, and what is just a fad.(I don't have a team lead role or any disciplinary power, so bonus points if those techniques can be used bottom-up)

liygaspar · Accepted Answer

You can check topics like "influencing without authority" https://medium.com/atlassian-product-management-blog/how-to-... Another thing to remember is that people learn, think and express opinions differently. For example some people might need to think through a topic for a couple of days before they are ready to present their opinion. For this category I find it useful to send the topic and a few links or any kind of info, including a high level meeting agenda a few days before the meeting. Then you have people that are spontaneous and can think and express their ideas on the spot. For them you need to make sure they get the space to do that without becoming too loud and taking the time from the others. It all comes down to understand the people you work with and what is their style. Try to cater for all styles though different techniques. Have a good agenda and clear rules - you can use https://www.idoarrt.com/ and send prior info so people have time to research.

brudgers · Answer

I strongly despise empty "we need to find a consensus" rhetoricThe simplest thing that might work is removing that attitude from the workplace culture.It's not a preference worthy of accommodation.Good luck.