Merriam-Webster defines “Consensus” as a general agreement or they judgment arrived at by most of those concerned. The Cambridge dictionary defines it as a generally accepted opinion or decision among a group of people”.

From the sounds of it, consensus is a good thing.

If consensus was always the goal, lobotomies would still cure all mental illness, cigarettes would still be good for you, and the world would still be flat.

Most of us have heard the saying: “It’s the best thing since sliced bread”. There is quite a story about sliced bread though and the time it took for it to become mainstream.

Sliced bread failed drastically for 11 years, due to consensus. In 1928, Fredeick Rohwedder from Montana invented a bread-slicing machine. The overall reception was that the concept would never work. The bread looked sloppy and bakers, the obvious authorities on bread, were unanimous that it was a fad and the idea would go stale just like the slices. At first, the issue of the bread going stale was countered by recommending that pins be placed in the ends of the bread to hold it together and keep it fresh longer. Two years after the invention, while sliced bread was just started to gain acceptance, Wonder Bread built it’s own machines, put the bread in bags to keep it fresh and started distributing throughout the United States. It wasn’t long afterwards that the concept of sliced bread was advertised in the Constitution-Tribune as “the greatest forward step in the baking industry since bread was wrapped.”

Quick consensus and agreement can breed “average” solutions. Or, like the sliced-bread story, it can completely dismiss solutions.

When I am in a meeting and everyone immediately agrees about how to solve a complicated issue, it concerns me. To me it means we are taking the easy route and we are either being extremely polite and considerate or we are sticking to tried and true methods and we aren’t being creative or thinking unconventionally.

Should we eventually strive for consensus? Absolutely. Should consensus be an overarching goal? Absolutely not. The best solutions often require discussion, challenge, and innovation.

If you are looking to be a leader recognized for ingenuity and creativeness, you need to build a team that is prepared to challenge conventional thinking. Conflicting ideas needs to be a good thing. Brainstorming needs to absolutely be conducted whereby there are truly no bad ideas – it can’t just be lip service.