Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Consensus and the Concept of Blocking

[Leif Weaver (leifweaver]

> I may have missed this, but I think one important part about dealing with
> blocking is how the issue is discussed from the beginning.  Sometimes we're
> ok with a committee coming to the general meeting with a proposal.  Other
> times, it doesn't work.  In those cases, I'm beginning to think that it's
> best to go back to the beginning.

We do it a little differently.
1) We have the committee come up with a proposal, and often that committee
will discuss the proposal with any member that is likely to have concerns
with it. When the committee feels that the proposal is likely to have
consensus, it is brought before the group.

2) There is a period of clarifying questions

3) Concerns are then brainstormed and written down where they can be seen by
everyone. One of the key points for us is that concerns must be phrased to
show how the proposal could be bad for the group.

4) The concerns are then quickly/roughly grouped by the facilitator or
scribe and each group is addressed one by one. It sounds like this would
take forever, but we have found that it actually works quite quickly to do
it this way.

5) When all the concerns are addressed, the proposal automatically has
consensus, and passes.

Thus the proposal can only be blocked if the proposal is detrimental to the
group, and obviously, if that is the case, we wouldn't want to pass it
anyway. The other thing that focusing on how the proposal could hurt the
group, is that it makes the concerns specific, and we can think of many more
possible solutions to a specific concern than we can to a general concern.

If anyone is interested in the details of our process, I would be glad to
post it.

Leif Weaver
Central Austin Cohousing

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