Notes from the introduction by The Glasers.

Go into the center of the conflict and there the relationship is strengthened.

In every group there are those who doubt the importance. “We don’t have time for the soft stuff.” “We don’t have time for team work and collaboration.” Creating a collaboratve culture is the key to a high performance organization.

An positive example of collaboration. In the SARS epidemic, A teleconference every single day where you share everything you learned with all the other labs. It took three weeks to identify the virus. The scientists said it would have taken three years if they hadn’t collaborated. The collaboration meant everyone shared all information with everyone else.

This is the foundation of organizational performance.

This isn’t just about “feel good stuff”, it’s about the nuts and bolts of organizational performance. We will leave with skills to transform the way we work in groups.

Decision-making
Organizations need to use three types of decision making. Everyone needs to know what kind of decision is being made. For example, often the participants feel that they are making a consensus decision and instead it’s a consultive decision.

• Command decisions. The leader calls it.
• Consultive decisions. The leader makes the decision with input, insights from group.
• Consensus decisions. Leader’s voice is no stronger than anyone else’s.

Today’s session is specifically on how to make consensus decisions. People support that which they helped to create. People who are closest to the work are usually the ones who know how to do the work more efficiently. This decision format is the hardest to do.

In consensus decision, EVERYONE has to share and pay attention. Everyone has to be listening (not on their cell phone!!) and everyone supports the decision when it’s done. Everyone can say, “I heard, I’ve been heard, now we can move forward.”

We’re going to practice this with “inside” groups and “outside” groups so that we can watch others experience this. Stay tuned for reports on the experience.