Quotes About Consensus

We have found that companies need to speak a common language because some of the suggested ways to harness disruptive innovation are seemingly counterintuitive. If companies don't have that common language, it is hard for them to come to consensus on a counterintuitive course of action.

It would be simply suicidal to French Canadians to form a party by themselves.

The measure of a master is his success in bringing all men around to his opinion twenty years later.

Tyranny of the majority

A lo largo de la historia, las economías que han florecido son aquellas en las que los acuerdos se sellan con un apretón de manos. Sin confianza, los tratos de negocios basados en el consenso de que los detalles más complicados se aclararán más tarde dejan de ser posibles. Sin confianza, cada participante mira a su alrededor para ver cómo y cuándo van a traicionarle sus interlocutores.

Only ten years after the passage of the Constitution, however, what were treasonable or seditious acts remained blurry and more problematic judgments without the historical sanction that only experience could provide. Lacking a consensus on what the American Revolution had intended and what the Constitution had settled, Federalists and Republicans alike were afloat in a sea of mutual accusations and partisan interpretations. The center could not hold because it did not exist.

For example, the Continental Congress made a deliberate decision to avoid any consideration of the slavery question, even though most delegates were fully aware that it violated the principles they claimed to be fighting for. Adams is most revealing on this score because, more than anyone else, he articulated the need to defer the full promise of the American Revolution in order to assure a robust consensus on the independence question.

Only ten years after the passage and ratification of the Constitution, however, what were treasonable or seditious acts remained blurry and more problematic judgments without the historical sanction that only experience could provide. Lacking a consensus on what the American Revolution had intended and what the Constitution had settled, Federalists and Republicians alike were afloat in a sea of mutual accusations and partisan interpretations. The center could not hold necausemit did not exist.

There is no question that Washington wanted the newly independent United States to become a republic in which consensus rather than coercion was the central political value. But he wanted that republic to cohere as a union rather than as a confederation of sovereign states. In his capacity as commander in chief, he could testify that the confederation model nearly lost the war. And if it persisted in its current form, he believed that it would lose the peace.

It just so happened that they agreed on politics and religion. It was precisely that agreement that has caused most observers to associate them with one another.

Silence and tacit consensus always, without fail, protect privilege. That is why the privileged are characteristically silencers.

Reeducation comes from voices that dissent from the unexamined comfort zone, from those who abrasively shock our comfort zones with voices from outside that violate the consensus that has been silently accepted.

if a person of authority talks only to those who agree with him he soon finds himself out of authority. Luke

Laddove tutti pensano allo stesso modo, nessuno pensa un gran che

Reputation is but a synonym of popularity: dependent on suffrage, to be increased or diminished at the will of the voters.

consensus, I envision people putting their best ideas on the table and crafting a different option that both sides can embrace.

Okey —" "Don't say it." "Dokey.

The suppression of doubt contributes to overconfidence in a group where only supporters of the decision have a voice.

Some judgments are biased; they are systematically off target. Other judgments are noisy, as people who are expected to agree end up at very different points around the target. Many organizations, unfortunately, are afflicted by both bias and noise.

How Groups Amplify Noise

people can maintain an unshakable faith in any proposition, however absurd, when they are sustained by a community of like-minded believers.

group polarization. The basic idea is that when people speak with one another, they often end up at a more extreme point in line with their original inclinations. If, for example, most people in a seven-person group tend to think that opening a new office in Paris would be a pretty good idea, the group is likely to conclude, after discussion, that opening that office would be a terrific idea.

that people can maintain an unshakable faith in any proposition, however absurd, when they are sustained by a community of like-minded believers.

That was the only thing Washington was good at these days—recriminations and apportionment of blame. There was once a time, during the darkest days of the Cold War, when American foreign policy was characterized by consensus and steadfastness. Now the two parties could not agree on what to call the enemy, let alone how to combat him.