Cohousing-L Mailing List: RE: Dealing with difficult personalities

[Racheli Gai (racheli]

IMO, having a back-up voting procedure is good enough.
If a group switches completely to voting, it might find it
difficult to go back to consensus later.

Also, a "consensus" process where a person can block wherever they don't
get their way isn't really consensus.  - So, one of the things to look at
is how to tighten the process, in order to make blocking
more difficult (and more appropriate).

R.


>It sounds like you a forming group, without actual land or a building
>project yet. This is the most unstable of times, since all you have is a
>vision, and its easy to leave since capital investment is low.

>Consensus does not work in the situation you describe. It can not, nor
>will not. You have already discovered that people will leave in disgust
>over the broken process.

>My advice, is to change your process to majority voting. For Awhile. It
>sounds like this person is using consensus as a weapon against the group
>to get her way. So meetings will move much better, and decisions will be
>made, once she can no longer hijack them. This is the danger of using
>consensus with people who do not understand or support the value
>structures underneath it, you get hijacked by a powerful personality who
>finds that they can use the process to get their way, or to get
>attention. You can use a cooperative process to discuss proposals, modify
>them, etc. But in the end, do a 2/3rds majority vote on the outcome. My
>advice is to facilitate this with a firm hand, move through 4-5 decisions
>this way. It does not have to be a permanent change.

>I have seen this exact problem in more than two dozen groups, and moving
>to a voting situation has always fixed it. Then they often move back to a
>consensus process after a while, usually with some different
>understandings and ground rules in place.  The most typical outcome is
>that the person(s) without humility get some and realize that they are
>only one minority voice, then they either change or leave. Once they
>figure out that they have to persuade people in other ways, or they
>simply get outvoted, is very educational for them and the group.

>Consensus process is a like a chain saw, it has several requirements to
>use it well and safely, and if you ignore those, you can hurt yourself
>pretty badly, even fatally.

>Rob Sandelin
>South Snohomish County at the headwaters of Ricci Creek
>Sky Valley Environments  <http://www.nonprofitpages.com/nica/SVE.htm>
>Field skills training for student naturalists
>Floriferous [at] msn.com

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racheli [at] sonoracohousing.com (Racheli Gai)
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