Cohousing-L Mailing List: Consensus requirements

[Rob Sandelin (floriferous]

Robert Heinich asked me what the requirements for consensus to work well and
safely. Here is my list of 7. Your mileage will probably vary....

1. People are willing to express what they think and feel without fear of
reprisal.
2. Participants agree that the good of the group is the most important
factor.
3. There at least one well trained facilitator to guide the group, or the
entire group is well
trained enough to guide itself.
4. The participants trust, or are willing to trust in the future, the group.
5. The participants can rely on the group to hold their personal interests
fairly.
6. The process is evaluated regularly so participants learn and improve
their skills
7. The participants are willing to invest the time it takes.

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


-----Original Message-----
From: cohousing-l-admin [at] cohousing.org
[mailto:cohousing-l-admin [at] cohousing.org]On Behalf Of Robert Heinich
Sent: Monday, April 21, 2003 9:19 AM
To: cohousing-l [at] cohousing.org
Subject: RE: [C-L]_Dealing with difficult personalities




>>> 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, what are those requirements? -Robert

Robert Heinich
Eno Commons
Durham, NC

--- "Rob Sandelin" <floriferous [at] msn.com> wrote:



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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