Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Dealing with self interest VS what's best for everybody

[Cohousing-L Listmgr (fholson]

Jim_Snyder-Grant [at] newview.org  or  Jim_Snyder-Grant [at] crd.lotus.com
is the author of the message below but due to a listproc problem it was
posted by the COHOUSING-L list manager: owner-cohousing-L [at] cohousing.org
********************  FORWARDED MESSAGE FOLLOWS ***********************

Hi Rob:

A thought:

Despite our best efforts at making big meetings safe places to be, I think most
people retain more flexibility & creativity in very small groups. I recommend 
one person goes to talk to this person in some mutually safe-feeling place & 
says something along the lines of "You know, when I think about this issue Y, I 
have this idea that your interest in having X happen might be getting in the
way of your seeing how important Y is to the group, and when I was thinking 
that,. I got nervous about how the group was ever going to consense about this, 
and I wanted to hear about it from your perspective." And then listen really
hard.

That may seem a bit scary (it is to me), but I think it has a way better chance 
of introducing some slack into the situation than any group intervention.


-Jim_Snyder-Grant [at] newview.org
or
-Jim_Snyder-Grant [at] crd.lotus.com