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Collaboration and Consensus Part 2

Here is the idea:

Great companies need at least one unreasonable person.

I just wrote something about collaboration & consensus so I have been thinking about this issue and companies strewn with reasonable people.

So … here is the key issue when you start talking about collaboration and inevitably consensus.

Collaboration can certainly lead to some great creativity. Consensus kills it. I heard a great line on the television show West Wing:

“We are a country of centrists.”

Companies are exactly the same.

In general, large organizations are groups of centrists.

Why?

Companies are strewn with reasonable people. People whose main criterion is “making sense”.

They bludgeon you with the “why does it make sense?” club every chance they get. They are the sensible people that keep companies from fiscal irresponsibility and in general keep the company out of the ditch.

(If I had a picture of every CFO I have met they would all go here)

To them everything has to have a reason. It has to all make sense.

Working with the smartest of these people (and please don’t believe because they are exceedingly reasonable that they are not often brilliant business people) means you are constantly running an escalating gauntlet of objections when you suggest a seemingly unreasonable (or nonsensible) idea.

“I’ve learned any fool can write a bad ad, but it takes a real genius to keep his hands off a good one.”

Leo Burnett, American marketing expert

Each sensible objection begets another sensible objection.

And it gets tiring (as well as the odds are in their favor they will ultimately get to the objection where you are forced to respond “because it feels like the right thing to do” … which is … uhm … the kiss of death to the idea).

So.

If you always did what the reasonable people want you to do, you will maintain your speed (sometimes you may go a little faster and sometimes a little slower) and you will drive right down the middle of the racetrack.

Sure.

You will never hit a wall or run off the track. But at some point someone will pass you (don’t worry … some of those guys have no clue what they are doing and will crash).

By the way, the crashers are probably a team strewn with unreasonable people who drive their reasonable few crazy. Unfortunately, some of those guys who pass you really do have their act together and most likely some unreasonable person figured out a way of getting people to endorse the ‘unlikely.’

So here is where an unreasonable person helps.

Sometimes their ideas make sense … but aren’t sensible.

=======

“Reasonable people adapt themselves to the world. Unreasonable people attempt to adapt the world to themselves. All progress, therefore, depends on unreasonable people.”

—

George Bernard Shaw

=====

To be clear.

When I say an unreasonable person … I am not talking about a visionary, although I believe a great company needs someone with a strong thread of visionarism (I made that word up) really near the top. Unreasonable people, more often than not, are the ones who really do just want to get good shit done. Not visionary type stuff but rather real problem solvers.

I would suggest most of the time people think the unreasonable person’s idea makes sense but seems unreasonable to get done. An unreasonable person can be a real pain the ass but if they are really good they bat around .400 (and remember Ted Williams was the last one to hit over .400 in 1941 so that is really good). This unreasonable person envisions/sees the idea that makes sense – has a good ‘reason to be’ – but also is willing to pound away on the unreasonable aspects of the idea, i.e., overcoming the gauntlet of “here is why it cannot be done.”

Finally.

Usually the last nail in the coffin when it comes to Consensus is getting everyone to accept the decision to go along with the unreasonable person’s idea. Getting the reasonable people to wrap their arms with 100% support behind an unreasonable idea is very very difficult (some people call this management alignment).

“In war as in life, it is often necessary when some cherished scheme has failed, to take up the best alternative open, and if so, it is folly not to work for it with all your might.”

—-

Winston Churchill

===

Anyway.

That is an issue I cannot resolve in a paragraph or two (unless the leader of the organization simply plays their role as a leader and tells everyone to suck it up).

Last thought on organizations and unreasonable and reasonable people:

I will leave you with a visual.

I tend to believe the optimal organizations have the appropriate mix of reasonable people (a lot), unreasonable people (fewer) and visionaries (very few).

So good luck if you pursue collaboration and consensus and seek innovative creative ideas.

And I hope you have some good unreasonable people sitting around somewhere.

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organizations are groups of centrists, leaders would use some common sense, leadership, Leo Burnett, lessons, looking for an edge in business, main criterion is making sense, management, marketing, messaging, model themselves on collaboration driven models, Neither under challenging nor over challenging, new challenges open office space faces, newest management belief, no one wants to trust chaos, Noli timere, noli timere business and life, not a management expert, not just for the organizational benefit, nothing is original, now questioning Montessori management’s basic assumptions, often necessary when some cherished scheme has failed, one unreasonable person, open floor office space business models, open-plan offices make it more difficult to concentrate, optimal organizations have the appropriate mix of reasonable people, original ideas, original ideas are typically nuances of existing, people confuse process and disciplined thinking, People focus when they need to focus, People 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one, talking about collaboration and inevitably consensus, team strewn with unreasonable people, that isn’t the way the world works, The group is now in trouble, the kiss of death to the idea, the myth of original, the myth of the proprietary process, the optimal organizations have the appropriate mix, the organizational trend’ du jour, the people who actually get the shit done, the sensible people that keep companies from, their ideas make sense but aren't sensible, there is some generalist, they have to be a little selfless, think of working in open office space environments, think the unreasonable person’s idea makes sense but seems unreasonable to get done, throw into a new products funnel, to take up the best alternative open, too hard to implement, truth, types of ideas a company needs, types of people in an organization, under the weight of Consensus, unreasonable, valued only because we expect that it will make us happy, We are a country of centrists, We fear what common sense 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December 10, 2009 by Bruce

Written by Bruce

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Collaboration and Consensus Part 2

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