Cohousing-L Mailing List: RE: using an exercise to steer towards concensus

[tilstra [at] smartchat.net.au (tilstra]

Recently I experimented with this as a method to speed up consensus, with
surprisingly to-the-point findings;

1. print out sufficient copies of a sheet with a grid (eg. a table with 3 by
3 or 3 by 4 cells).

2. Give identified stakeholders a cell each. In cohousing I'm thinking the
person on a waiting list, the household on a low income, the person with a
passion for social justice / environmental sustainability), the household
with young children, the adolescent, the neighbour, the local planner, the
banker, etc.. The cleverer the choice of stakeholders, the better this
exercise seems to work.

3. Ask participants to identify the top two needs & top two fears of this
stakeholder. This is ten minutes well spent, so far I found that people
working individually works best. My experiences so far have been that people
need some time to ponder this. Needs identified may be about being loved,
feeling a sense of belonging, etc. Make sure you stick to these
just-below-the-surface interests rather than the often overdiscussed facts.

4. Collate this work in a visually appealing manner (eg. at least legible
from a distance), then identify the degree to which these various needs are
incompatible in a group discussion. Frankly, this is a guided question, as
most groups would generally find these needs fairly compatible.

5. Identify potential conflicts of interest. What would one stakeholder have
to do to compromise protecting identified needs & fears? With the synergy of
the group, I found it above average in "aha" what came up & would love to
hear what your experiences are.

:-) Hans
http://home.vicnet.net.au/~cohouse/communities.xls (are your details correct
or on the list?)

on a technical note; I'm using http://www.mail2web.com but find the emails,
yet they sometimes arrive rather patchy.


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