Friendly Excursions into Disequilibrium

So the first possibility that teachers and sometimes managers extend is the idea that you're supposed to all come to an agreement by the time the meeting is over.

You're supposed to reach consensus.

And I suppose in a classroom setting, it's better that everybody comes to a real consensus where people say, yes, I agree, that's better than voting.

And voting, in turn, is better than having the teacher or the boss decide.

Consensus is better than that.

But premature consensus, where it's kind of enforced harmony, that's not really an incubator of good decision-making, effective problem-solving.

It doesn't require courage.

You know, companies that force everybody to agree on something tend to be tamping down objections because people don't want to be the one to hold up the decision and make the meeting last even longer, you know? Enforced harmony is how you get the Bay of Pigs invasion or the flammable Ford Pinto or something.

Alfred Sloan, who ran General Motors a hundred years ago, famously said to the board of directors, I take it we're all in complete agreement on this decision? Yeah? All right, in that case, let's postpone further discussion of the matter until our next meeting to give ourselves time to develop disagreement and perhaps gain some understanding of what the decision is all about.

But not that many managers, facilitators, or teachers have that understanding that when everybody seems to be in complete agreement, that's when it's time to worry.

Part of the motive for getting everybody to agree, not the only motive.

Sometimes it's just a matter of forcing, manipulating everybody to come to the predetermined decision or outcome that the leader or instructor wanted.

Sometimes it's just, let's call a halt to this so we can get to lunch.

But sometimes people favor consensus to avoid conflict.

And many people are conflict avoidant for various reasons, some having to do with how they were raised, and sometimes it's just because they think conflict is a bad thing.

That's their ideological perspective.

I would argue it isn't, unless you're defining conflict as something really unpleasant involving control or the abuse of power or manipulation or something like that.

But conflict, the idea that we're pushing back on each other is not necessarily a bad thing.

And sometimes the absence of conflict may mean that people aren't that interested in what they're doing and they say, fine, I'm happy to sign off on that, which is not a good thing.

Or it could mean a lack of gumption where people are unwilling to stand up and say, no, I'm sorry, I can't go along with that, which is what we're looking for and hoping, I think, to promote in kids as well.

The absence of conflict in a classroom means you're not getting a full measure of learning.

Real learning requires some degree of pushback, of disagreement, of clash.

That's partly why the progressive leaders like Dewey and Piaget thought that collaboration in the classroom, cooperative learning is so important is precisely because it permits this kind of give and take to stretch your thinking, to push and be pushed by each other to end up with a more sophisticated understanding.

But sometimes that's not very pleasant.

So the question then is, when does that turn sour? When does it go south? And the answer, I believe, is with that option number two, the main alternative to reaching premature consensus, which is debate.