In any group effort universal consensus is preferable to majority rule

Universal consensus implies a unanimous agreement among all the members of a team, without having any member with contradicting views with the group. Whereas a majority rule suggests that a few group members have different opinions or thoughts than the rest of the group. A team has to work together throughout the duration of their work and need to have each other’s back at all times. Thus, in agreeing with the author, I feel that a universal consensus is extremely important in a group effort.

A team having members with a fundamentally different mindset or attitude towards their work is bound to collapse in some or the other way. Even if the number of such members is less. For example, consider a team working on a robotics competition due in a month. Even if all the members decide with a majority decision to work with extreme dedication for the entire month, few members having other priorities over this competition are bound to show less dedication than members who are giving it their all. This ignorant behavior becomes unfair to those working for hours together day and night in spite of agreeing on a majority rule or a common decision.

Moreover, a group with all members having a similar mindset or a common goal has fewer disagreements within itself. Everybody is motivated to work towards the same goal. Consider a situation where unfortunately your group does not achieve the required goal. A group with mutually understanding members will share the failure equally among all. No one will blame it on each other or back out in any case. In the opposite scenario as well, if the team performs extremely well, above expectations, it does not feel wrong to give equal credit to each member.

However, in a practical situation, it is rare to find such an ideal group. The probability of having at least one person who does not completely agree with you is high. In this case, he or she has to compromise while making sure, his disagreement with the team in any which way, does not affect the other team members. The team has to move forward with the majority decision which is better for the team in all aspects.

Thus, having a universal consensus in a group can result in extraordinary achievements and is always preferable over a majority rule. But this situation being extremely ideal, is less likely to occur. However, even in a majority rule, if each member gives his best, despite having a different ideology, the group effort is more likely to be fruitful.