Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Re: Power Struggles After Move-In

[Sharon Villines (sharon]

> Any ideas for blasting through the meeting sludge but still ensuring an
> acceptable level of "progress/decision making"?

We had a workshop on decision making models this weekend. The leader had one
bit of advice -- cut loose the people who do not care about the issues. Let
them go!

She felt it was better to hold special topic meetings where the people who
cared about an issue met and made agreements. The final agreement is then
presented to the whole group.

The understanding is that if you care about the issue, you have to get
involved early on, or forever hold your piece.

She does labor negotiations which are very very word specific. She says that
when she has a general agreement and they have to hammer out the words, she
often takes those who care about wordsmithing aside to do that because the
other people just do not care.

The problem in cohousing is that when you expect everyone to "volunteer"
they need to be aware that work needs to be done. If they opt out of
meetings, then someone has to corral them for work. Thus making more work
for the person corralling.

If we could trade meetings for work? Our hardest workers are also our best
meeting attenders.

Sharon
----
Sharon Villines
The MacGuffin Guide to Detective Fiction
http://www.macguffin.net



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