Why Consensus Kills Innovation

Consensus is seductive. It feels democratic, responsible, safe. Teams gather feedback, tally the votes, and tell themselves they’re “customer-led.” But when it comes to innovation, consensus doesn’t lead anywhere new. It drags you straight back to the middle.

I’ve watched this play out for decades in market research. A product team sets out with something bold. They commission studies, test concepts, and invite the “voice of the customer” into the room. By the time all the data is summarized and every stakeholder has weighed in, the original edge is gone. What’s left is something you can benchmark, but not something anyone will remember.

This isn’t an accident. Consensus is designed to sand away the sharpness. It punishes the outlier in favor of what averages well. That’s exactly the problem. Averages are the opposite of innovation.

Think about how we usually treat customer input. A focus group of “representative users.” A survey designed to produce neat percent-top-box numbers. A workshop that turns messy disagreements into sticky-note alignment. All of it points toward agreement. But agreement is where breakthroughs go to die.

The uncomfortable truth: not every voice is equally useful. Some customers are dug in, nostalgic for the past. Others complain endlessly but have no real vision for something better. Their input adds weight but not direction.

And then there are the rare ones—the customers I call catalytic. They aren’t necessarily experts, but they know the category inside and out. They push products hard enough to see the cracks. They’re quick to spot what doesn’t work, but also quick to propose what would. They’re constructive in their criticism, not destructive. And above all, they’re hungry for utility. They want products to do more for them—not just look shinier or newer.

Consensus is allergic to these voices. It drowns them out with the comfort of the middle. Teams nod along with the averages because averages are easier to sell upstairs. Easier to defend in a PowerPoint deck. Easier to “socialize.” But that ease comes at the cost of relevance.

The companies that move markets don’t chase consensus. They put disproportionate weight on the right disagreements. They make room for tension instead of smoothing it away. They learn to distinguish between noise and catalytic input, and they let that input shape decisions.

Innovation requires risk. Not reckless risk, but the risk of listening harder to the few who demand better and ignoring the pull of the many who are content. If that feels uncomfortable, it should. That discomfort is the signal that you’re listening to the right people.