Cohousing-L Mailing List: RE: Learning from Hard Decisions

[Rob Sandelin (floriferous]

One of the first  hard decisions we made was a restrictive pet policy. We
started off making up sets of details and policy proposal and the community
was pretty evenly divided on polar ends: No pets at all, vs. no restrictions
on pets at all. This seemed pretty hopeless, but we deliberately set it
aside for a couple of months, and just had a bunch of informal, around the
dinner table type of conversations.

Then we re-approached the idea from a conceptual angle. Instead  of a
detailed proposal, we started with a concept: Why have a pet policy at all?
As it turned out, we all agreed on several reasons why having a pet policy
would be a good thing. Once we had these 4 concepts, the details supporting
those concepts reached consensus easily, including some of the very same
details which had been opposed earlier.

So the learning for us was: Sometimes it is better to start first with the
concept, reach an understanding of what you want to accomplish and why,
before trying to figure out all the details.

Rob Sandelin
---
Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free.
Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com).
Version: 6.0.332 / Virus Database: 186 - Release Date: 3/6/02

_______________________________________________
Cohousing-L mailing list
Cohousing-L [at] cohousing.org  Unsubscribe  and other info:
http://www.communityforum.net/mailman/listinfo/cohousing-l