One of the theme of Radical Transitions that resonates with people that we share the model with is the realization that their process is stuck in what we refer to as a shadow conversation—conversations that can’t build community. Last night I was talking with someone whose group is bogged down trying to build consensus for a new logo and tagline that will be used to market a district. What to do about it? We propose:
The reality is that we don’t need to agree on everything for any of us to take action in the direction of our dreams. There are many small acts and invitations that do not require permission, support, or even interest from the whole.
Could that work for your group?
Hi guys: Consensus is not a time waster. What wastes time is not having a good set of decision criteria. The simple approach to this situation for me would be:
1. Have a good conversation about how we will make decisions together. If you use consensus, use a good model for getting there such as a Likhert scale.
2. Become clear on what decisions need to be made by the whole. Invite people to then bring proposals to the whole for decision, not open questions.
3. Open up the working groups to everyone. If people want to shape the proposals, they should have the ability to sit with the group that is shaping proposals. You want to design the logo, sit on the logo design group. You want to move things forward, let them bring the proposal forward for conversation and consent.
As with everything, it is the time you spend up front that makes the process run well.
Excellent point, Chris. Thanks for making it. I think in most cases where the discussion deteriorates into a shadow conversation, the decision criteria isn’t clearly defined. Perhaps the difficulty arises because decisions aren’t made together?
Here’s a link to the Wikipedia entry re: Likert Scale.
Thanks Chris. I like the idea of engaging people in the co-creation of the future which does indeed build agreement that wouldn’t happen otherwise.
hi guys. been a while.
i’m going to sympathize with the original title here. building consensus does waste time. finding consensus, on the other hand, accelerates everything.
the logo example might be a good one, but it doesn’t matter if the committee or the sub-committee or the hired graphic artist go do the work of generating options. the ideas can be generated in any one or more of those meetings/settings.
once the ideas are generated, “building concensus” has always seemed to me a benign, even benevolent, way of deciding what to do. and it’s always seemed to waste a lot of time, because in its interest in keeping everyone together on the decision, it always seems to rely on keeping all the bits of the decision together as well. so many requirements, imposed. “finding concensus” or just “noticing” concensus would do the opposite: tease the decisions apart.
deciding together is tough. deciding on the decision criteria often even messier. i always advise folks not to talk about open space as a process, talk about purpose. talking about the process, ost or decision criteria, is like sending a bill to the rules committee… where it can be tied up indefinitely.
finding consensus is about asking *if* everyone can agree to the whole proposal, but *what* about any proposal or situation or question can the whole group agree on. if we can’t agree on action, how about structures, rules, decision criteria, etc.? and if not on that, then what about vision, strategy, dream, direction? and if not that, then what about purpose? and if we are not agreed on purpose, then maybe we’re not one group at all…. or maybe we have to click back (in this medicine wheel sort of view) to action… maybe we just don’t agree on what’s actually happening, the action that already is.
no matter at what level we find agreement, action (next), structure, vision, purpose, action (past), structure (causes?)… the only question that seems to move things forward is “what do we agree on?” rather than any rule that says “we must all now agree on…” before we can go forward.
so the logo decision, throw out a bunch of ideas, in committee, subcommittee, working session, wherever… and then notice what most people like best. look for the broad agreements. then, even if the work isn’t done, those become the building blocks for the next round of ideas.
seems a bit like the nature of order, christopher alexander, stuff. where does life come from? can’t be made. can only be unfolded out of other life. where does consensus come from? can’t be made either. can only be unfolded out of other consensus.
what if we never talked about decisions, or decision criteria, or visions, or even purposes, explicitly. never raised them as essential parts of the process? what if we only asked over and over again, “so, what is it that we all agree on right now?” and then we did only those things?
I am part of a woman’s group that meets every two weeks on Saturday. The first week we had no idea what we wanted to do, how we wanted to do it or even if we could do it. We simply told each other why we had come to the get together. From that conversation, four themes emerged. Our next meeting focused on a plan of action drafted from that first meeting. More than half of those attending had not attended the first meeting. Again, the same theme again emerged. One of the gals said I think we are on to something. We all know we are on to something. We have not gotten bogged down in convincing others to see things “our way” instead “the way” is emerging through conversation. When we begin talking about the how to get it done, we begin to diverge on the “better” strateghy. Still, we put all methods on the table and realize that some can blend, others will stand alone, and anyone is free to “do” anything that “they” want to do. There is no time spent on whose idea is more worthy.
Finding consensus is necessary to move forward. Building consensus keeps you in one place and is counter to what you probably want to accomplish.
There is a great idea born every minute. The difference is the idea that becomes action. In a room of fifteen people, there will be many great ideas, but what idea will move forward, grow and flourish. Action is what is required. I firmly believe that it doesn’t matter as much “what we do, but that we do”.
i was part of a similar group some years ago, gloria. perhaps a dozen met once, around a vague-ish theme of exploration. eight of us met a second time and they asked me to presnt some things i was working on. then the question was what to do next.
it was quickly and easily agreed to come to the next meeting and bring one thing you loved. we went around and told our stories, one at a time. then we naturally began noticing the common theme(s). marvelling really.
so the next month we “checked in” about what seemed important. and then marvelled again at the variations we were living on common theme(s). we went on like that for 2+ years. nobody ever missed a single monthly meeting. and then we had a last meeting, rather unannounced, unplanned, but obvious, as well. and it was done.
it was in that time that i learned to recognize what seemed like local, personal movements, shifts, challenges, etc as common, simultaneous, universal. we several times considered taking up some “action” and also considered expanding the group, doing something with what we’d discovered, but always successfully avoided any of that. to the good, i think.
we all remember that group, which did nothing that any of us can point to, as one of the more remarkable groups any of us have ever been part of. in some ways all we ever did was propose and notice consensus, and then go out and apply it in our individual work/lives.
which reminds me… it’s not consensus from many, e pluribus unum, that is the hard part… it’s achieving that state in a meeting that then results in everyone leaving still an individual, and knowing what to do when they get back out in the world by themselves. action is individual. even when it’s “group action” it takes individual actions and commitments for the group to appear at the appointed time.
and that is how i think consensus wastes time. it says to everyone: “don’t DO anything, until we all agree.” it hold individuality and action captive to the one, true, yet to be decided, ever elusive, way. stops the breathing. consensus: how a group holds it’s breath as ransom, while demanding a future that can’t be achieved without (aerobic) activity.
I guess I never really thought about building consensus or finding consensus in these terms. In my housing co-op, when there’s only one of us in the group that knows that the front door needs to be painted, she simply takes care of that, and the door is now red. Nice. And when one person sees that the courtyard needs to be swept and doesn’t want to do it alone, he asks for help.
On the other hand, when it’s time to hire a contractor, any one of us could block the decision, according to our bylaws, yet the ones that didn’t make any phone calls to set up appointments to get bids are the same ones that aren’t living in the units with no kitchens, they don’t feel that it would be right to exercise that option even though the bids seem too high.
And on the third hand, when it’s time to adjust some of the definitions we use in our formulas to calculate monthly payments and ultimate determine a sales price for a share when someone leaves, and one person is uncomfortable approving for reasons unclear to us all, probably even him, if it’s not an emergency, we simply don’t waste time with it. We let him sit with it. If he read it, perhaps he could fix it. And when it’s really, really needed, he’ll either figure out what’s wrong and help us help him, or he’ll simply approve along with the rest of us.
So I guess my sense of all of this is, voting is not needed (as if anyone was suggesting it was, ha!), and consensus is only needed when it’s really needed. Do the work you can. Ask others for help. When you need group resources, make an invitation that respects the whole group. Consensus just happens.