Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Process cards--decision point

[Doug Simons (doug]

On Monday, April 1, 2002, at 04:28  PM, Tree Bressen wrote:

> When it comes to the decision point in the consensus process, i strongly
> recommend that groups use language such as "calling for consensus" or
> "checking for any unresolved concerns."  As a consensus facilitator, the
> word "vote" does not cross my lips unless it's in reference to formal
> voting fallbacks or some other mechanism that the group has deliberately
> decided to use to supplement or replace the consensus process.
I agree.  Here at River Rock, we sometimes use thumbs as a means of 
"temperature taking" to get a sense of whether we are close to 
consensus, but when it comes to actually making a decision we always ask 
"the four questions" with a short pause after each one, and a longer 
pause (officially a "golden minute of silence", though it tends to be 
shorter, especially for non-contentious issues) to seal the decision. 
Here are the four questions:

Have all points of view been expressed?
Have all concerns been addressed?
Is this a decision we can live with?
Is this in the best interest of River Rock Commons?

Usually we have worked through everything by the time the questions are 
asked, but a few times someone has interrupted to voice a new concern or 
something that just came to mind, or perhaps has been able in the 
silence to articulate something they couldn't express earlier.  After 
many decisions made using this process, including a number of tough ones 
that we had to struggle to achieve consensus on, I feel a strong sense 
of ownership of the questions, which I think is probably shared by most 
of our members.  The way the questions are worded reminds us each time 
that our decisions are made for the benefit of the community as a whole, 
while including and respecting all concerns and viewpoints.

I have somewhat mixed feelings on the subject of thumbs 
(up/down/sideways).  On the one hand, they can be a very convenient, 
quick way to get a sense of how close to consensus we are and who has 
unresolved issues.  On the other hand, they do feel a lot like voting, 
and I think occasionally have led us to drop something which appeared to 
not be heading for consensus, without fully exploring our options.  From 
what I've read, I think I would prefer the colored cards.  We 
experimented with something like that briefly a long time ago, but I 
don't think we really gave it a good trial.  And of course our thumbs 
are always at hand!

Doug

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