When Consensus is a Mistake

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Chasing consensus in product decisions wastes time, creates mediocrity, and subtly kills accountability. There I said it.

You will never have 100% alignment from every stakeholder. Trying to achieve it slows everything down, drains your energy, and dilutes product outcomes.

Product managers who obsess over consensus end up pleasing no one and shipping nothing of consequence. Strong teams make aligned decisions. But aligned does not mean unanimous.

Because “alignment” is often confused with “approval.” And because product people fear being seen as difficult or uncollaborative, they work too hard to get every stakeholder to nod along before moving forward.

The result is a pile of watered-down features that lack conviction and a calendar full of meetings that don’t lead to decisions.

If everyone agrees with your product decisions, they were probably too safe.

I'm not saying you go rogue. And I'm certainly not saying you stop listening to feedback from your colleagues. But let's stop wasting everyone's time laboring through menial decisions and discussions, while neglecting things that are meaningful.

Let me explain.

Takeaway 1: Consensus is the enemy of speed and clarity

Product people love to get input. Feedback loops. Stakeholder reviews. Workshops. Playbacks. Comments in Figma. Feedback is good. Listening is part of the job.

But listening is not the same as stalling. It’s easy to justify another review or another round of feedback. But what you’re really doing is delaying a hard call.

You’re waiting for universal buy-in because it feels more comfortable. The irony is that the people you think you’re empowering by giving them a say (your teammates, your cross-functional partners, your leadership) are the same people who are frustrated by the lack of direction.

You don’t need everyone to agree. You need them to understand what’s happening and why. That’s alignment. Not consensus.

Listen to people's input. Think it through. And then make the final call. After all, that IS your job.

Takeaway 2: “Make everyone happy” is not a product strategy

When product decisions come from trying to please every function (design, engineering, marketing, sales, support) you get Frankenstein features.

A dashboard with too many filters. A signup flow that’s been touched by four teams and doesn’t convert. A product that technically checks all the boxes but feels like it was made by a committee.

Product work has tradeoffs. Great product managers don’t eliminate tension. They make deliberate, thoughtful decisions within it.

The best teams aren’t trying to make everyone happy. They’re trying to make the right people successful. If you’re shipping things that avoid conflict but don’t serve the customer or the business, you’re not building a product. You’re managing a reputation.

And as I alluded to earlier. All of those partners think you suck at your job sometimes. Maybe all the time. That just comes with being a Product Manager. So why are you trying to appease them in the first place?

What really makes people happy is contributing to a successful, high impact product.

Takeaway 3: Alignment comes from clarity, not agreement

You don’t need to get everyone to say yes. You need to make sure they understand what was decided, why it was decided, and how it ties back to the bigger picture.

That requires clarity. Not wordsmithing. Not vague language that dodges confrontation. Not “softening” decisions to sound like groupthink.

It means saying, “We considered Option A and Option B. We chose Option B because it better supports our retention goal, even though it means delaying the workflow redesign. We’ll monitor the impact and revisit in Q3.”

The moment your team hears that, they can move on. They may not love it. But they understand it. They see a clear line between strategy and decision.

Clarity builds trust. Agreement is optional.

Takeaway 4: The wrong kind of collaboration drains teams

There’s a version of collaboration that looks like endless “brainstorming” and “ideation” where no one wants to be the one who draws a line.

Everyone is “contributing.” No one is deciding. The team feels like they’re working hard, but momentum is gone. Product reviews feel like therapy sessions. Slack is full of polls. Docs have five authors and no owner.

That’s not collaboration. That’s diffusion of responsibility.

A product manager’s job isn’t to absorb everyone’s input and merge it into one non-offensive compromise. Your job is to create focus. Invite collaboration early, not constantly. Define the frame. Facilitate tradeoffs. Then decide.

If you try to protect every opinion, you’ll never move forward.

In Conclusion

Consensus feels good. It makes the meetings smooth and the Slack reactions plentiful. But it also makes the product average.

Product managers who chase consensus avoid the very decisions they were hired to make. They waste cycles gathering agreement instead of building clarity. They prioritize comfort over outcomes.

You don’t need everyone to be happy. You don’t need a vote. And you don’t need agreement.

You need a vision. You need alignment. You need successful products.

Next time you feel the urge to get one more thumbs-up before moving forward, pause. Ask yourself if you're making a better product or just avoiding conflict. Then decide. And lead.

Thanks for reading. See you next week.