Five-Finger Consensus
By Michael Wilkinson, CMF
Managing Director, Leadership Strategies, Inc.
Organizations across the world have been learning that facilitated group sessions can be quite effective at developing creative solutions to address shared problems. In a facilitated session, the group attempts to reach agreement on a set of solutions. An essential element of any facilitated session is agreement on the method for making decisions. There are several alternatives.
A. Majority Rules
In some groups, decisions are made by majority. Whatever the majority of the participants want, that is the decision that is made. Majority decision-making can be quick. However, it can also lead to less than optimal solutions because not enough time was spent investigating potentially better alternatives. Majority decision-making can also result in less effective implementation because there is not full agreement.
B. Super Majority
With the super majority, the group debates until a large majority of the participants agree with one alternative. The super majority target is typically 60 percent, 67 percent or 75 percent.
While typically not as quick as majority rules, the super majority can still lead to less than optimal and less effective solutions for the same reasons as majority rules.
C. Consensus
With facilitated session, the typical approach to decision-making is consensus. Consensus is often defined as, “I can live with it and support it.” Consensus does not typically mean I think the solution is the best. Instead, it typically means the solution has enough elements that I am willing to go along.
The strength of consensus is that it encourages discussion until solutions are created that we are all willing to accept. It typically increases the effectiveness of the implementation because we did reach full agreement. However, there are two major challenges with consensus. First, consensus can be quite time consuming. It can take a very long time to come to agreements that all are willing to accept. However, an even greater problem exists with consensus. Often a potentially great solution can be watered down in the spirit of finding something with which everyone in the group can agree. While we achieve consensus on a solution, the cost of consensus may be a solution that is far from optimal, and might be described as the “least common denominator.”
D. Five-Finger Consensus
Five-finger consensus is designed to encourage significant agreement without jeopardizing the quality of the solution. Here’s how it works.
- Once an alternative is proposed and discussed, and the group is ready to check for agreement, the facilitator does the following. The facilitator explains that on the count of three, each person should hold up between one and five fingers indicating the level of support for the recommendation on the table.
5 – Strongly agree
4 – Agree
3 – Can see pluses and minuses, but willing to go along with the group
2 – Disagree
1 – Strongly disagree and can’t support
- If everyone shows a 5, 4 or 3, consensus has been reached, and we can move ahead. If there are any 1s or 2s, those who indicate such are given the opportunity to explain to the rest of the group why they gave the rating and make recommendations to change the alternative in order to make it acceptable to them. The originator of the alternative has the option to make the change or leave the option as it is and explains the decision to the rest of the group.
- Then the facilitator tests five-finger consensus again. If everyone shows a 5, 4, 3 or 2, the decision is made, and we can move ahead. If there are any 1s, those who indicate such are given the opportunity to explain to the rest of the group why they gave the rating and make recommendations to change the alternative in order to make it acceptable to them. Once more, the originator of the alternative has the option to make the change or leave the option as it is and explains the decision to the rest of the group.
- In the final review, majority rules. The decision is made based on the majority of the participants.
Five-finger consensus encourages the group to listen carefully when there is disagreement; and, in fact, encourages listening carefully twice if necessary. But the technique doesn’t allow a solution to be watered down because a few disagree. Though admittedly there may be one or two who don’t like the alternative, our belief is that five-finger consensus helps ensure that they all are heard, and heard well.
Interested in learning more facilitation techniques? Check out our course, The Effective Facilitator.
Michael Wilkinson is the Managing Director of Leadership Strategies – The Facilitation Company, and a much sought after trainer, facilitator and speaker. He is a Certified Master Facilitator and a Certified Professional Facilitator. As a past president of the Southeast Association of Facilitators and a board member of the National Institute of Facilitation, Michael is a national leader in the facilitation industry. You can get more tips from either of Michael’s books, The Secrets of Facilitation or The Secrets to Masterful Meetings. You can receive a signed copy through our website.
