The people I know who most frequently cry, “Analysis paralysis!” and demand that everyone take immediate action without further discussion generally claim to do so for the sake of expedience. There is no time for this, they argue. The group must stop talking and start doing, and make progress toward its meeting its goal.

Try pushing back on moving forward with their plan, however, and their behavior begins to suggest that perhaps something besides expedience might be motivating them. 1) They are often suspiciously willing to argue for hours that wasting time on further discussion is ridiculous given the urgency of the situation; and 2) they are suspiciously unwilling, for the sake of expedience, to yield to the course of action advised by their opponent. It is the other guy who needs to be sensible, to be a team player, etc.

Consider this possibility: Perhaps “analysis paralysis” only appears to be caused by analysis and deliberation, but that the root cause is resistance to deliberation by those who think they can use means other than deliberation to get their way. They hold a project hostage with their stubborn uncooperation (or other bullying behaviors) until the group pays the ransom: doing things their way.

Essentially, the type of bickering, non-communicative talk used to argue against deliberation is a sneaky form of filibustering.

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All too often, other people on a project (people who dislike conflict and really do want to get things moving) are eager to whatever it takes to end the conflict. What’s the quickest route to end the stalemate? Putting an end to further deliberation, of course! The filibusterer keeps arguing to end it, and the other guy keeps going, anyway. The team takes the path of least resistance. They pressure the one arguing for the deliberation to capitulate.

After all, has deliberation gotten us anywhere?

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A filibustering argument against deliberation  creates an illusion of symmetry: two sides are talking but neither side can come to an agreement. It works to discredit deliberation by aping the forms of deliberation while undermining it, and in so doing demonstrates the futility of talk.

Further, the content of the filibuster’s speech is expedience, team-play, progress, being realistic, reasonable, efficient. Who can argue with that? The other party is positioned as arguing against all these good things. He is obstructing progress, insisting on being indulged, not caring that the team is facing a deadline, wasting time on more talk. The other guy doesn’t agree with him, but he just won’t give up.

Talk isn’t working, but he keeps on talking, anyway.

See? Sneaky!

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Subtle distinctions with important consequences:

Not all talk is dialogue. Not all argument is deliberation. Dialogue requires a sincere attempt by all parties to understand one another. Deliberation is the genuine attempt to reach consensus on a course of action.

Dialogue and deliberation are precisely what an “analysis paralysis” filibuster obstructs. It argues against the need to reach common understanding, and passes this off as simple disagreement. It argues against considering rival courses of action and presents the failure to agree on this fact as a failure of deliberation itself.

Dialogue and deliberation require a good-faith effort by all parties involved. They fail from lack of desire for them to succeed. This fact is easily exploited when a group values harmony and efficiency so much that it will purchase it at any cost, even reason, collaboration, empathy, respect and all those other pretty “core values” words that people love to talk about, but are so ready to betray to “practicality” (* See note below).

To allow an “analysis paralysis” filibuster to kill deliberation is to cooperate with it and succumb to it, and to reward coercive tactics that undermine authentic collaboration.

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Think about the people you have known in the past who have played the “analysis paralysis” card. They usually have one of several of the following characteristics:

1. They are in a position of power and know they can get away with coercion.
2. They simply don’t enjoy analysis and look for excuses to avoid it.
3. They are intellectually disinclined to understand perspectives other than their own. Often this is because…
4. They tend to think there is a right answer, and if someone cannot prove them that the answer they have found is wrong, it proves that their solution must be the right one.
5. They fail to see that a misunderstanding by definition looks exactly like an understanding to one who misunderstands.
6. They have very strong wills, and see stubbornness as a virtue.

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Any group that considers itself founded on principles of respect and collaboration can quickly cure its “analysis paralysis” by doing the following:

1. Agree that all attempts to circumvent deliberation will not be tolerated by the group and will automatically fail.
2. Make it clear that the most expedient course of action is to use open, reasonable dialogue to come to a solution acceptable to everyone, which might not be one of the original proposals, or even a compromise, but a creative synthesis superior to all the initial proposals.
3. Establish that decisions are to be made by weighing the merits and weaknesses of each proposal (as opposed to adopting the first proposal as the default, and requiring the first proposal to be shown faulty before rival proposals are considered.)
4. In disagreements, require each disagreeing party to represent the view of the other to the satisfaction of the other, to establish that common understanding has been achieved.

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Analysis paralysis will not be cured by indulging those who paralyze analysis through filibustering. The only cure is a political one. The group must say together: “We do not have time to argue for hours with you that we do not have time to argue. Converse respectfully or forfeit the argument.”

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* NOTE: Practicality, of course, is a euphemism for “expedience” which is in truth the only “core value” most people hold, because expedience is the principle of having no principles at all. I also keep hearing people calling expedience “pragmatism”, which galls the hell out of me. Take my word for it, or read up on it yourself: genuine pragmatism takes far more balls and brains than most people have.