Our management team doesn’t always agree on the important stuff, does that matter?

I was recently reading an article about the co-CEOs of Sony Pictures, Michael Lynton and Amy Pascal. The piece was talking about how radically different the two CEOs are, but what a successful partnership it was turning out to be. The bit that really grabbed my attention though was when Amy Pascal said that she and her co-CEO “fight”. I love a team that freely admits to passionate disagreements.

They take their fighting seriously. It seems the co-CEOs have a conference room that adjoins their two offices so they can use it to thrash out their issues in private. And when they have wrestled enough they exit the conference room with a decision that they both then seamlessly stand behind.

When I am working with management teams (albeit of businesses rather smaller than Sony Pictures) they often tell me how they get stuck when it comes to making important decisions because they can’t reach unanimous agreement.

The need for consensus is both a human strength and fallibility. Emotionally we feel good when everyone agrees on a particular course of action and it is a great relief not to be burdened with the nagging thought: “Could the dissenter have actually been right?” On the other hand however, in an attempt to reach consensus, we often water down our bold decisions until they lose their edge.

And sometimes decisions simply don’t get taken at all. I have seen dissenters literally hold their management team to ransom. Unable to make a decision because they can’t get consensus, groups of up to 10 people have abandoned it altogether because of one particularly vocal dissenter. Not an effective way to run a business.

When I am working with management teams I always remind them of Jim Collins’ research which indicates that important decisions should never be taken with consensus. Rather, the best decisions are made when everyone in the group has clarity about the issue at hand, contributes to a vigorous and passionate debate, helps the group come to a (non-consensual if need be) decision, and then stands behind that decision. The latter point is so important (and in practice quite tough) I think it’s worth repeating. Everyone stands seamlessly behind the decision even if they were originally opposed to making it.

Disagreement is important, it shows that your team are passionate about your business. Just don’t let it get in the way of progress.

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Julia Bickerstaff’s expertise is in helping businesses grow profitably. She runs two businesses: Butterfly Coaching, a small advisory firm with a unique approach to assisting SMEs with profitable growth; and The Business Bakery, which helps kitchen table tycoons build their best businesses. Julia is the author of “How to Bake a Business” and was previously a partner at Deloitte. She is a chartered accountant and has a degree in economics from The London School of Economics (London University).