A consistent challenge that leaders face is building consensus when there’s disagreement among board members or other significant leaders in their organizations. I experienced this challenge numerous times, but one remains vivid in my memory. I was leading the board to move the campus to a new location when a mega church in the area offered to give us land—at no cost. Many on the board were fearful of aligning with one church and others were confused as to why we wouldn’t accept the offer of free land, saving millions of dollars. Two of our most generous financial partners added to the chaos: One communicated that he’d stop supporting the seminary if we took the offer; the other told me he’d stop supporting the seminary if we didn’t take the offer! How do you build consensus in that level of confusion?
Consensus is defined as reaching one hundred percent support—not one hundred percent agreement. Here are some practices that have proven helpful to me over the years.
• Pray: Stop the conversation and enter a session of group prayer. Invite anyone who wishes to pray. Don’t rush this first step as it’s the wisest choice at this point. During this prayer time the board asks for wisdom and discernment from God. They also urge God to remove any barriers that hinder their hearing God’s guidance so they can reach consensus
• Evaluate whether the decision is urgent and important.
o If you have more time to make the decision, slow down, ask for more time to research and analyze the board input. Explain that you’ll bring the decision back to the board at the next meeting for further dialogue. This gives you more time to understand the objections and to provide better factual data to support the decision. Remember to trust and inform your board. Don’t try to convince them.
If the decision must be made at the current board meeting, then consider some of the following strategies:
• As a group, and with integrity, discuss again why the board should approve the decision and why they shouldn’t. Give both viewpoints equal and careful consideration. Ask what you may be missing.
• Some of the most important and urgent decisions you will make will need to be made with insufficient or conflicting information. This is where God asks us to honor him in the decision process we use and in acknowledging our need for His guidance and wisdom. This place of faith and dependence upon God can strengthen a board.
• Implement the decision in steps instead of in an “all or nothing” approach. Identify the wisest first step. After taking that first step, observe what happens and if needed, adjust your strategy. Then, go back to board for support to move forward. Board members who disagree with a decision usually respond well when they see that the senior leaders have listened and thoughtfully organized the implementation of the decision into steps that can be evaluated and adjusted when unforeseen consequences occur. And count on it: They will occur.
• Remember that new information will arise when you start implementing the first steps of the decision. No amount of advance analyzing can reveal all the new information; only moving forward does. Commit to bringing back to the board for further discussion any new or expected information before you proceed to the next step.
• In the end, if the decision is urgent and important and disagreement still exists, I suggest that the board needs to trust the instincts of the senior leaders and allow them to proceed. This isn’t acquiescing; rather, this is trusting God to lead the senior leader and agreeing to public support.
• For the sake of the unity of the Spirit of Christ in the organization, board members who still have reservations must agree to publicly support the decision. If they cannot, they should gracefully exit the board.
• Remember that no leader always makes perfect decisions. If the senior leadership team has a history of making unwise decisions, then the board needs to consider this matter wisely and separately from the current decision they are discussing.
• Trust is key. Ask if what I’m about to do will it build trust—or destroy it.
We finally reached an agreement not to accept the free land and trust that God would lead us forward. Within three weeks, God did provide property at a discounted price that better suited our relocation. When I explained the situation to the two donors, both excepted the new location and made significant contributions for building the new campus. Not all decisions end this well, and during those three weeks before God guided us to the new location, I struggled. However, applying some of these strategies made it possible to reach consensus—ultimately successfully building a beautiful new campus designed specifically for our educational needs.
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