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Beware of Unanimous Consensus
One of the mental models I have been researching lately and have become fascinated by is the Consensus Paradox. At first blush, the idea that everyone agreeing on an outcome or a solution seems like a very desirable thing. But, the deeper I dig and the more thinking I do on the subject, the more I see the flaws in my first blush idealism. As it turns out, there are many cases, especially in business where consensus leads to really bad ideas coming to life.
The History of the Consensus Paradox
The earliest mention of the paradox seems to stem from the Torah, the ancient Jewish book of wisdom. In it, the Torah explains the basis of the paradox through Rabbinic law. Basically, the idea here is that if a set of judges unanimously rules a defendant guilty, then the defendant must be exonerated and released as a free man. While this seems to be an almost ridiculous assertion on the surface, the ideals behind it are strong. The main ideal is that judges and the system of law should be so filled with willingness to accept innocence that surely, if every judge on a panel of judges doesn’t see any level of reasonable doubt, then the case must be an anomaly and potentially a breakdown of the system or a sign of corruption. Thus, to introduce self-correction into the system of law, a unanimous guilty verdict (which shouldn’t ever happen given the system parameters), is enough to…
