Re: Choosing Colors
From: Rob Sandelin (floriferousmsn.com)
Date: Mon, 3 May 2004 10:01:10 -0700 (PDT)
There is seldom a final right answer that is best for the community in regards to color. It is a preference issue, especially in dealing with shades and tones vs. Green or Red. Therefore, not surprisingly, most consensus processes work poorly. I have done this decision for a few places, and NOT ever used consensus, because as I carefully explain to the clients, consensus is not the right tool for these kinds of things. In one case that shocked them so much they fired me, then spent months in arguments and flailing. Maybe YOUR group can use consensus to arrive at these kinds of decisions. My hats off to you if you can. Many groups seem to experience lots of trouble, and in the end, people just give up out of frustration or being tired or time constraints push people into shutting up.

A process that I have done which works is called a scaled vote.

1. Make a palette of choices into a poster which as lots of room on one side.
2. Give everyone a 1, 2 and third choice sticker
3. Let people put their stickers on their 1, 2, and 3 choices.
If 3/4ths of the 1 or 2 stickers chooses one option,  you are done. if not:

4. Remove all the low scoring choices and do a run off of the top three.

5. If needed, do a runoff of the top 2. In theory, you could have no winner. In practise I have not seen this happen.

There are lots of ways to spin this, like count the total value of all the votes, assigning numeric values to the stickers, or to only have one choice in the second round.

I recall one process where one of the participants did not get her way, had a pissy fit, and loudly denounced me, my process, and the whole community. Then she left the group. A week later I got flowers and a card signed by the whole group thanking me for getting this person out of their community.

If people get overly freaked out about shades of color (light brown vs. medium brown) it might not actually be about the decision, its about control. Look for patterns in use of red cards by individuals and do the interventions if needed. If you don't know how to do an intervention, I have resources on the webt you are welcome to.

Rob Sandelin
Sharingwood Community
Snohomish, WA

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