Is unanimity in a decision-making body good or bad?
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Thanks everyone who replied. I think more bad than good. Here are my thoughts.
It's a sign that participants aren't paying attention or engaging meaningfully with the decisions. This can happen either because the question is too trivial and they can't see why they're being asked (like approving the minutes of the last meeting) or too big and daunting so they don't even know where to start in the discussion (like the nuclear reactor in Parkinson's Law of Triviality example).
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Thanks everyone who replied. I think more bad than good. Here are my thoughts.
@evan "Twelve Angry Men" where the decision ended up being unanimous.
But it didn't start out that way.
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It's a sign that participants aren't paying attention or engaging meaningfully with the decisions. This can happen either because the question is too trivial and they can't see why they're being asked (like approving the minutes of the last meeting) or too big and daunting so they don't even know where to start in the discussion (like the nuclear reactor in Parkinson's Law of Triviality example).
It shows that the questions don't have significant stakes. If people don't care enough to take decisions for AND against, maybe the frontier is somewhere else. The body is not engaging on that frontier.
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It shows that the questions don't have significant stakes. If people don't care enough to take decisions for AND against, maybe the frontier is somewhere else. The body is not engaging on that frontier.
It can also mean that the real decisions are being made somewhere else. If they are, then whatever that decision-making process is, it should become canonical, instead of hiding behind what seems to be a meaningless voting process.
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It can also mean that the real decisions are being made somewhere else. If they are, then whatever that decision-making process is, it should become canonical, instead of hiding behind what seems to be a meaningless voting process.
I'd say it's more bad than good, but not exclusively bad. It's possible that the body has wrestled through their disputes in some sort of discussion already. The question under vote is already a compromise. I think that's rare, though. Few compromises are perfect, and they usually leave a residue of a few holdout votes.
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I'd say it's more bad than good, but not exclusively bad. It's possible that the body has wrestled through their disputes in some sort of discussion already. The question under vote is already a compromise. I think that's rare, though. Few compromises are perfect, and they usually leave a residue of a few holdout votes.
Sometimes unanimity is required to show how important the conclusion is. Those kinds of decisions are rare though. I'm less concerned about occasional shows of solidarity, and more concerned about groups that agree 100% for vote after vote.
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Sometimes unanimity is required to show how important the conclusion is. Those kinds of decisions are rare though. I'm less concerned about occasional shows of solidarity, and more concerned about groups that agree 100% for vote after vote.
Personally, if I am in a decision-making body that is having unanimous rubber-stamped votes, I'll raise objections and start discussions on principle. Sometimes this is to force myself to take my decision-making responsibility seriously. Other times, it's to give others in the group social permission to voice other objections, some of which might be more material than my own.
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Personally, if I am in a decision-making body that is having unanimous rubber-stamped votes, I'll raise objections and start discussions on principle. Sometimes this is to force myself to take my decision-making responsibility seriously. Other times, it's to give others in the group social permission to voice other objections, some of which might be more material than my own.
Unanimity can also mean that the members are incredibly aligned; they share a common mission and they have similarly good skills in understanding information they have been presented. Even in this case, it's probably not great. Groupthink can set in, and the body can go off course unanimously.
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@evan "Twelve Angry Men" where the decision ended up being unanimous.
But it didn't start out that way.
@jmeowmeow this is a great example. Unanimity where the record shows real evidence of deliberation, and that the consensus is hard won, is probably a lot healthier than a unanimous vote without discussion or debate (as almost happens at the beginning of that story!).
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Unanimity can also mean that the members are incredibly aligned; they share a common mission and they have similarly good skills in understanding information they have been presented. Even in this case, it's probably not great. Groupthink can set in, and the body can go off course unanimously.
One place I've seen unanimity come up is one when a subgroup puts together a plan and the larger group needs to approve it. Often this is treated as a technicality, or a nuisance, rather than taking the responsibility of oversight seriously. These decisions are a backstop for poor choices or even misbehaviour, and it's important to engage fully.
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It's a sign that participants aren't paying attention or engaging meaningfully with the decisions. This can happen either because the question is too trivial and they can't see why they're being asked (like approving the minutes of the last meeting) or too big and daunting so they don't even know where to start in the discussion (like the nuclear reactor in Parkinson's Law of Triviality example).
@evan M. Scott Peck's phases of community comes to mind. He calls the first phase "false harmony" or "pseudo community" and describes it as a way for the group to avoid differences and conflict until it is ready to come to grips with them. All groups pass through some version of that or end up there from time to time. Some groups never develop further and they can become extremely stifled and lose contact with reality (e.g. the reality that decisions are made other places).
