Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Consensus & Conflict

[Christopher Herndon (cherndon85]

Hello fellow travelers :)

I appreciate all the perspectives and wisdom in this group!!!


*I wanted to reply to Martie's response to my recommendation to take Diana
Leafe Christian's Sociocracy course. Probably relevant to Melanie's
response to Martie's email as well.*
One of the downsides to emails and text is that we can assume we know what
each person actually means. My intent here is to bring clarity to what I
meant by 'good vibes'.

By me saying 'good vibes' in my original recommendation to take Diana's
Sociocracy course, I wasn't saying that conflict is avoided in Sociocracy.
I could have been more thoughtful in describing what I meant by 'good
vibes' so let me define it so there's no confusion by what I meant.

'Good Vibes' = Harmony amongst the group. To create harmony, a group must
be able to work through conflict. Groups create harmony together when
they're also able to accomplish things, get things done, win together, etc.
Harmony can also be created by having clear processes that everyone is
trained and aligned on (i.e. governance and decision-making, conflict
resolution, etc).

When it comes to conflict, disagreement, etc. there's a process for
decision-making in Sociocracy where people can express their objections to
a proposal. Objections are not blocks, they're opportunities to make the
proposal better. As Diana teaches sociocracy, there are at least seven
clear reasons a person can object to a proposal. A personal
preference/personally preferred strategy is not one of them. If someone
objects to a proposal for  any reason other than these seven clear reasons,
or because the proposal otherwise somehow violates the purpose of the group
or of the committee, the group moves on and members of the group can hold
space / process with the person who objected for personal reasons (but at a
later time). Sociocracy meetings are about getting things done, not holding
space / processing emotions (fear, doubts, etc). There is definitely a time
and a place for the latter because any group using sociocracy can create a
committee to specifically process emotions and resolve conflicts. However,
in sociocracy, emotional processing doesn't usually happen during meetings,
unless someone proposes a specific amount of time alloted for this, and
meeting participants consent to the proposal to take that amount of time
for discussion or emotional processing.

That's all for now ~

-- 
*Chris Herndon*
253-332-5108