Getting Consensus is Investment

Today I read the article of “Namawashi”, the Japanese term of the method to get consensus. This is my reflection when leaders with "Lean" mindset get faster consensus via "Namawashi" to make the project fast.

Here is an example.

- A leader has “Lean” mindset. He has internal stakeholders as a team.
- In the first iteration, the person got consensus with the team quickly via Nemawashi.
- The implementation was successfully done.
- It created some results.
- For the futher iteration, the leader continued to get consensus in the same way to make things fast.

In this situation, the team would end up far from “Lean”.

Nemawashi’s nature is persuasion of each person separately. It also eliminates the collaboration between stakeholders. Under such communication, team feel less ownership. When a leader tries to be fast or showing leadership for short term result, he/she may choose such way because they want to be "Lean". However, it causes silo and bureaucratic thinking in organization.

Way of getting consensus is investment. It forms the low level organization framework, whether if we care or not.