Nearly everyone who has ever been involved in decision-making by consensus has seen it happen at least once: There is a proposal under consideration that enjoys widespread, perhaps nearly universal, support. But in the end, it is blocked by one or more people, and the concerns of those who blocked the consensus were not able to be addressed to their liking. Often such meetings end in frustration, and perhaps with participants wondering what is so democratic about a process in which a small minority can override the majority and maintain a status quo. There is certainly no consensus for doing nothing in such situations, and perhaps a majority of the group would block a proposal to do nothing. All roads forward are blocked by such a stalemate.
What causes such hang-ups? In theory, the process of building consensus includes addressing the concerns of those in opposition, and sculpting the original proposal until everyone can at least agree that it is a legitimate decision that the group as a whole has made, even if one does not personally agree with the content of the decision. But in the case of an unresolved block, the trust among members of the group broke down somewhere along the line. While at first glance, it seems that the content of the decision is what is causing the block, it may often be that the problem lies in the process--either the agreed upon method of decision making was not applied or fully understood, or perhaps there is an underlying disagreement about whether the group is even ready to make the decision.
Think of what makes decision-making succeed or fail, and you will generate a list of process-related issues, such as trust, education about the process, inclusiveness and competent facilitation. A group will not routinely succeeds out of good luck or fail because it keeps trying to make decisions that are inherently too difficult to reach consensus. However, most groups pay little or no attention to process--either engaging in some organic process that usually works, or following a set of procedures that originated with the group years ago, or perhaps were borrowed from another source. While either of these approaches will usually work well enough to not tear the group apart out of frustration, their limits become glaringly obvious once the inevitable block occurs.
A technique that usually gets the job done, but comes to a screeching halt at the first strong resistance by anyone in the group is a weak technique. It will often lead to disillusionment, and even the loss of group members due to frustration or burn-out. Why is this? Direct democracy and consensus has truly dazzling potential, offering a way out of our society's dysfunctional way of deciding by trying to achieve majority rule by dumb force of persuasion, with little thought given to why many people voted against a decision, and many more didn't vote. In theory, consensus will provide more legitimacy to the decisions made, lessen the likelihood of gridlock or constant changes of direction as competing forces gain and lose strength, and will bring the group together rather that pitting it against itself. But the reality of consensus building is often much different, with the same sort of head-butting as is found in electoral politics, with the added irritation of long meetings.
David Chrislip, a self-described student of collaborative decision-making who leads workshops nationwide, points out that for true agreement on the content of an issue to be reached, there must first be a process of building progressively deeper agreements. These prerequisite agreements are painfully obvious taken individually, but together they offer a road map; each level offers a fork in the road, one of which leads to eventual resolution and the other of which leads to an eventual dead end. Conversely, if the group is unable to reach consensus, it can go back one step at a time until it finds agreement, and proceed along a different road to the final agreement. At times, it will appear that there is a shortcut, and consensus will be rammed through because the opposition simply gives up rather than forcing another long, agonizing meeting. While this may solve the problem in the short run, it can permanently damage the group, as trust is replaced by antagonism. At each step, the group must reach agreement at least implicitly, or the subsequent steps will bear no fruit.
These seven levels are as follows: First, that there are concerns that need to be addressed. Second, that those concerns should be addressed collectively by the group. Third, how these concerns should be addressed. Fourth, how to build a shared understanding of information about the concerns. Fifth, on a definition of the problem and any visions of how to overcome the problem. Sixth, on a specific strategy for solving the problem. And finally, on how that strategy will be implemented.
Most often, a group jumps right to the last two levels, and ignores the need for the previous steps, which function as a foundation for these levels. It would certainly be tedious to start every attempt at making a decision with a discussion of whether there are concerns and whether the group should be working together to address them. However, there are occasional situations in which this is not clearly the case, and the facilitator should be able to recognize this and back the process up to the appropriate level, rather than just assuming that agreement exists where there is none and pushing blindly onward. This takes a great deal of sensitivity to what someone's underlying concerns are, especially when they may not be clear even to that person.
By creating a process that incorporates attention to each of these levels, when appropriate, we may make great progress toward truly resolving our differences, rather than just covering them over. If a process is truly inclusive, constructive and well informed, then good decision will generally be made and most people will recognize this and the legitimacy of decisions made by this process, which will in turn lessen the likelihood of their blocking consensus. Instead of a process that can be reduced to waiting until one side loses patience with an endless meeting and gives in to the other, we can hope to reach the full potential of consensus decision-making.
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