Re: Questioning Consensus | <– Date –> <– Thread –> |
From: Mac Thomson (machappyvalley.com) | |
Date: Mon, 23 Oct 1995 13:48:35 -0500 |
Dan Suchman, Thank you for your lengthy post on the appropriateness (or rather, inappropriateness) of consensus to American cohousing. That kind of intelligent and civil discussion is why I so much enjoy coho-l. I also appreciated the paragraph headings, which I find make long posts much easier to digest. Our group is just forming and since inception, I've acted as Project Manager and have had sole control over decisions (so far I've put in 100% of the money and 98% of the time, but the "Project Manager" strategy is grist for another post). We plan to use consensus and I've done a fair amount of research and procedure documenting in preparation of that day. In my research, I've never come across anything the indicates that consensus and delegation are incompatible. Like you, I can't conceive of trying to manage any operation of more than a dozen people without lots of delegation. > I suggest that consensus does not preclude delegation. In fact, the > larger the community (and all communities of more than about 12 > people), the more essential is delegation to the effective operation > of group decision-making. I believe this to be true regardless of > whether the prevailing decision-making mechanism is consensual or > democratic, hierarchical or egalitarian. In one of my previous lives, I partnered in managing a business of several hundred people. We, of course, delegated 99% of the decisions made in the company. How could we do it any other way? And not only is delegation effective and efficient, it's tremendously empowering (to use an overused, overpopular word). When people have some autonomy over a decision, they feel that they are trusted and have a direct impact on the operation, and they therefore feel much more connected. And isn't this a big part of why we choose to live in cohousing rather than just being a resident of a city - to feel connected to our community, to be trusted, to have a direct impact? Like all things, delegation must be used wisely and can get us into trouble if it's not, but to discard it as one of our fundamental decision making tools is unthinkable to me. Thanks again for your post. Mac Thomson San Juan Cohousing Mac [at] HappyValley.com Durango, Colorado "I used to be an agnostic, but now I'm not so sure." --Sent from HappyValley FirstClass BBS 904.246.9255
-
Questioning Consensus Rob Sandelin (Exchange), October 20 1995
- Re: Questioning Consensus Stuart Staniford-Chen, October 23 1995
- Re: Questioning Consensus Mac Thomson, October 23 1995
Results generated by Tiger Technologies Web hosting using MHonArc.