An introduction to the Gag Scale

Whether it's designing and building software, developing go-to-market strategies for a startup, or resource planning for a consultancy… Anytime you're making decisions as a team and there are disagreements or a lack of consensus, I like to use a system called the Gag Scale to help measure how teammates feel about decisions and ideas.

I learned the Gag Scale from one of my first corporate bosses, and first actual mentor (and friend): Joel Butler. He'd picked it up from some corporate training at a previous job but i’ve never met anyone else who's heard of it since. I've searched the internet several times but sadly, with no luck. AI agents don't seem to be trained on it either. And while, I don't exactly know why it's called the Gag Scale, this is my attempt to document how I was made to understand the system, both for interested folks and so there's some record of it at least somewhere.

Here's how the Gag Scale works. First, you rate how you (or how you think someone else) feels about a decision on a scale from -3 to +3. A 0 means you're indifferent and could go either way. A +1 means you think it's a good idea. A +2 means you think it's such a good idea that you're going to spread it around the company. A +3 means you think it's so good you're going to quit and start your own company based on it.

Next, you go in reverse. A -1 means you disagree but will go along with it. A -2 means you disagree so strongly that you'll actively undermine it. A -3 means you think it's such a terrible idea you're going to quit.

This simple spectrum stuck with me throughout my career. While I've shared the gag scale with numerous teams, I've never had one where people actually announced their scoring after reaching a decision. Who's going to admit they're a -2 and will work against their team? Instead, it's something I try to evaluate through what people say and do. It's usually not hard to suss out.

If someone seems truly upset by a decision (a potential -2) I'll talk with them to see if there's been a miscommunication or room for compromise. Most of the time this helps them feel better about the outcome.

I also watch for teammates who are repeatedly -1 on decisions within a project. If someone has a string of "disagree” or "go along with it" moments, it's worth a one-on-one conversation. Often these folks have something bigger they want to share but won't raise in a team setting, or they may have less experience in the domain and are naturally skeptical of things they don’t 100% understand.

This raises a final question: what kinds of teams do the best work? The ones in constant agreement, the ones that constantly disagree, or a mix? I only have my own observations to go on, but I've found that teams who aren't afraid to disagree from time to time, yet can also enter into an agreement flow state for long stretches, do the best work.

While Amazon has a similar approach for capturing disagreements called “disagree and commit” and being "+1" on something is well understood in meetings and on Slack, I like that the Gag Scale measures how strongly folks feel about particular decisions and ideas.