Depends on what you mean by “consensus”. For example, in some organizations it means “we will not make a decision until literally everyone agrees with it”. In which case, stubborn people make all the decisions (until the others get sufficiently pissed off and fire them).
Oh. I haven’t followed the link before commenting.
Now I did… and I don’t really see the connection between the article and consensus. The most prominent example is how managers misunderstood the technical issues with Challenger: but that’s about putting technically unsavvy managers into positions of power over engineers, not about consensus.
(I wonder if this is an example of a pattern: “Make a statement. Write an article mostly about something else, using arguments that a reader will probably agree with. At the end, a careless reader is convinced about the statement.”)
but that’s about putting technically unsavvy managers into positions of power over engineers,
Technically unsavy manages who insisted that the engineers tell them what they wanted to hear, i.e., who insisted that they be included in the consensus and then refused to shift their position.
Depends on what you mean by “consensus”. For example, in some organizations it means “we will not make a decision until literally everyone agrees with it”. In which case, stubborn people make all the decisions (until the others get sufficiently pissed off and fire them).
Probably true. But I don’t think that’s the sort of thing Jim is talking about in the post redlizard was quoting from; do you?
Oh. I haven’t followed the link before commenting.
Now I did… and I don’t really see the connection between the article and consensus. The most prominent example is how managers misunderstood the technical issues with Challenger: but that’s about putting technically unsavvy managers into positions of power over engineers, not about consensus.
(I wonder if this is an example of a pattern: “Make a statement. Write an article mostly about something else, using arguments that a reader will probably agree with. At the end, a careless reader is convinced about the statement.”)
Technically unsavy manages who insisted that the engineers tell them what they wanted to hear, i.e., who insisted that they be included in the consensus and then refused to shift their position.
I think that level of logical rigour is par for the course for this particular author.