Negative Poll

We work with teams that are made up of characters. For some reason, the people who know the most about our projects always seem to have strong personalities. And everyone knows what happens when you put 5 or 6 or 8 people with strong personalities in a room... a fight.

So how do you move your Six Sigma team or Lean event team forward when it feels like a draw in the 7th round of a heavyweight bout?

• Unanimous consensus is great, but remember, this is a room full of characters so unanimous agreement is very unlikely


• Majority voting works too, but someone always loses (maybe necessary sometimes, but not team building)


• Negative polling - "Does anyone have a problem if we try this?"


• Faster by far than consensus when you are in a hurry
• No one loses
• Keeps the team together and moving forward, even if it is just agreement to try something