Discussion disenfranchises expedited outcomes

I've been meaning to get this off my chest for a while, but past experience has taught me that you need to give yourself some internal deliberation cycles before blurting things out.

There have surely been numerous Dilbert cartoons that can better illustrate and convey my cynicism better, however I shall verbalise them here to get it off my chest and hopefully maintain some degree of sanity.

I'm buggared if I know how large organisations such as the U.N. manage to get anything done, I really do. I mean, you have a melting pot full of hands at the table and to get anything passed, it needs buy-in from countries with vastly different ideas on morality, discussion and expeditiousness. This all chews up cycles when a micro dictator or iron fist could make the decision in a fraction of the time, saving discussion when it could better be spent down at the pub, where the fervour of more productive interaction actually happens. Conventional committies have this potential too, but instead their only hope ("chair people") are instead shrouded in masses of requirements for protracted debates and giving everyone the nice feeling that their input is valued, when it often clearly isn't. Perhaps the way around this is to give everyone the feeling that they have made positive contributions to "the process" but just plod along with your agenda in the background, and swap some of the phrasing around to make it look like you have taken their contributions on board.

This is nothing new, and politicians, and moreover their PR spin doctors are masters at such a skill. Such a situation often succeeds because an environment has been set up to allow them to form a consultancy process, "update" their proposal based on feedback and continue on their merry way. However the need for transparency sometimes makes this tricky, since there are sharp tools in a given populace's shed who like to work with an analytical hoe rather than just sniffing the policy flower that has been given to them (alright, I think that analogy went too far..). So now turn your attention to the private sector where companies are often tight around the belt and don't have the "liberty" of so many beedy eyes. Here is where such behavior can fester...errr.. be fostered best. As long as you don't spread your work around for endless cycles of buy-in, but still can avoid the sticky sitution of having to justify why you didn't get enough, you should be home free.

I'll provide you with an example of how it doesn't work. You provide a document for discussion and since they are pressed for time so they only read the hilights that interest them and send feedback. This feedback can be of a tricky nature (say world peace which might need a bit of fleshing out), so it needs discussion. Now going on the assumption that your own argument is on solid ground (diamond's pretty solid isn't it?) you reply back with your argument, creating some swiss cheese from their feedback. The discussion stops there since you've got no reply to the reply.

What can you do? You go with your own suggestion since it's sound, even based on the feedback. However the committe needs to make sure everyone is heard and spends inexorable wads of time to chase them up and plead for some more input. Deadlines encroach omniously near. Churn churn. What adds some further tabasco spice to the proceedings is if the committee is reporting its work up to superiors through a series of matrix management paths. In addition, everyone's got their own opinion. Also, everyone is an expert. Opinions are fine, but when these opinions are sold as books of the gospel itself and they're repeatedly found out to be mistruths (accidentally of course) it build distrust. What can one do?

What you need is a good Fidel Castro at the heart of every committee, perferably with some physical deterrent against those trigger happy feedbackers.

I'll touch on solutions later, now that I've outlined my some of my greviences in a good incoherent manner.