"Building Consensus - How Individuals Influence Groups" - my new book is launched

I am very glad to announce that my new book is now available for sales. Please find it by clicking here.

The title of the book is “Building Consensus – How Individuals Influence groups”.









This book emerged out of our ambition to reflect upon our collective experiences in leadership development, teamwork and group facilitation. Throughout the last few years we have had the opportunity to meet and work with other youth leaders in over 40 countries. We have listened to and learned from many extraordinary individuals and one of our key realizations has been that the individual plays a central role in the formation of the world. We have come to believe that it is the actions of individuals that create the world. As creators of the world, individuals are responsible for what they create, but they also have the power to change the world.

This book provides a window to the processes that we use to create collective opinions, and more specifically it provides a look at the acts that constitute those processes. We hope that this book will help individuals to raise awareness of how they themselves contribute to peer pressure, groupthink and other social phenomena of which they are part. If this book can be the slightest support for individuals seeking to elevate themselves from their circumstances and observe how they contribute to what is going on around them, then we have succeeded. Towards this end, we provide practical tools that might be used by individuals and groups to more actively expose the processes that create consensus, and thus bringing about the ability to actively influence them.

The cover text is the following:
The processes through which we construct consensus are important, since they can contribute both to destructive groupthink, as well as rationally justified consensus. Taking Searle’s speech act theory and Habermas’ theory on communicative action as a starting point this study explores how individuals contribute to the construction of consensus. In addition, practical tools, which can be used to help individuals become aware of their contribution to consensus as well as to create rationally justified consensus are provided. Our account of these processes is developed through a case study on a Swedish non- governmental organization: AIESEC Sweden. This book provides insights for anyone interested in learning more about team dynamics, opinion creation and the ways in which individuals attempt to influence the construction of consensus in a team setting.
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The common theme in my two books, beyond that they are addressing the role and responsibility of the individual in the context she is part of, they seek to combine practically relevant issues in an academically relevant way. As opposed to be speculating on what our findings can mean for the world, “Building Consensus – How Individuals Influence Groups” make claims on what our re-search has shown. Thus, we allow and require of the reader to apply our findings in the context applicable for them.

This book should be considered as a work in progress. Should you have any questions or reflections, feel free to contact Aron Lindberg at aron.lindberg@gmail.com or me at emanuel.gavert@gmail.com.

Emanuel