Sunday, April 13, 2008

Consensus

The importance of team work and working toward a consensus is very important in the work place. Off hand it really doesn't seem like a difficult task. However, when we did the activity in class it was really amazing to see how different our ideas were when we got together as a group. We had a couple people that just seemed to think they were right and we found ourselves wanting to negotiate instead of coming to a consensus on the issues. It is so important for you to listen to everyone and receive all the input before making a decision. Also on the other side of the coin, everyone needs to vocalize their reasoning as to why they think their decision is the best. If someone just tells you they want the decision to be made this way and they don't have any information to back up their decision, it is hard to be persuaded to do so even if that would be the better choice.


Personal Experience
In my every day life I see how my husband and I come to a consensus on different issues with our children all the time. My oldest daughter wanted to go to a friends (Andrew) house. There would be a couple other classmates there who my husband and I did not approve of. We also did not approve of Andrew and did not trust him. After my husband and I talked it over we came to a consensus that we would let our daughter go to Andrew's home. We were both hoping that if there was anything going on at Andrew's that we did not approve of, our daughter would call us to come pick her up. We told her she could go to his house and that we wanted her to remember what we expected of her and also reminded her about how her own decisions could affect her. We expected her to call us if there was anything going on that was inappropriate or she was uncomfortable with. We would not ask questions. This conversation happened about a month and a half ago. She has yet to go to this boys house. She decided on her own that she didn't want to go. My husband had wanted to just tell her "no", absolutely not. I really wasn't sure how to handle it. We are both glad we listened to each other and our daughter made the right choice.


References
Here is a site that may help you better understand "consensus":

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