Measuring support: what works and what does not

2026-07-05

Support is one of those words everybody uses and nobody measures. Usually it is read off the atmosphere in a meeting: if nobody objects, there appears to be support.

That is exactly the wrong gauge.

Why agreement misleads

Silence can mean anything: agreement, disinterest, or the judgement that objecting will achieve nothing. From the front of the room those three look identical.

On top of that, what you are measuring at such a moment is the support of the people present who said something, and that is rarely a cross-section of the people who will have to do the work.

Support has two layers

There is a difference between I think this matters and we are going to pull this off. Someone can wholeheartedly affirm the first and not believe the second, and then nothing happens.

That second layer is the stronger predictor of behaviour. In Ajzen's theory of behaviour this is called perceived behavioural control: the judgement of whether you can actually bring something about. On a topic with high importance and low feasibility it does not help to repeat the importance; you have to increase control.

Support is not: do they think it matters. Support is: do they believe it will work.

So what you measure

Three things, and the third is almost always skipped.

• Importance, because without it nothing gets off the ground.
• Feasibility, because that predicts whether people will actually move.
• Agreement, because if people understand different things by a topic, consent is an illusion.

The last one is the most interesting. If half the group places a theme here and the other half there, that does not mean they disagree about the solution, but about the question. That has to be addressed first.

Division is more usable than consensus

A map on which everything looks smooth and unanimous gives you little to talk about. It is precisely the places where the group diverges that tell you where the energy and the resistance sit, and where a decision may later run aground.

That is why it is a waste to design a process that forces consensus. Better is a set-up that makes differences visible, so you can discuss them rather than trip over them.

What that looks like in practice is on Who it is for.

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