Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Re: Refining concerns / needs

[Becky Schaller (bschaller]

I'm not familiar with CT Butler's Formal Consensus process, but I thought
the step after naming concerns was for the group to look at them closely and
basically ask two questions.

1.  Are there concerns here that seem to contradict each other.  If so,
let's look more closely at these concerns and see if we can simply find a
way to reconcile these two concerns.   This might be difficult, but it does
serve to name and focus the group on particular problem areas.

2.  Are there some concerns here that are more important than others.   In
other words, if we can not come up with a proposal that addresses all the
concerns, are there some that we absolutely must address.

It may be that it would be best to address these in the opposite order.

Becky Schaller
Sonora Cohousing
Tucson, Arizona



> From: Tree Bressen <tree [at] ic.org>
> Subject: Re: [C-L]_Re: Refining concerns / needs
> Reply-To: cohousing-l [at] cohousing.org
> 

> 
>> Becky's questions about separating needs from solutions raised another
>> situation we found ourselves in. In proposal presentations, we were being
>> asked about our concerns and would work very hard at coming up with
>> everything we could think of -- bouncing off each other, raising every
>> possible problem or opportunity the proposal raised.
>> 
>> The team presenting the proposal would then throw up their hands and say
>> "This is impossible! We will never reach consensus! This will take forever!"
> 
> Sounds like a group using CT Butler's Formal Consensus process perhaps?  I
> like his system for its clarity, but i think this is a major flaw in it.
> The group is invited to list concern after concern, but there is no step
> where a group is invited to share their enthusiasm, their positivity, their
> good energy!  What a drag--of course many people, especially newcomers to
> consensus process, are going to feel like their proposals are doomed.
> There needs to be a better balance, inviting people to share both the pros
> and cons (rational, emotional, intuitive, or whatever) in response to
> proposals.
> 
> Peace,
> 
> --Tree
> 


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