Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Cohousing-L Proposals and Decisions

[Mac & Sandy Thomson (ganesh]

This looked like pretty good stuff on coho-l so I thought I'd forward it.
I'm guessing that someday we may perhaps have business meetings again and
decisions to make.   :-)

- Mac

-- 
Mac Thomson

Heartwood Cohousing
Southwest Colorado
http://www.heartwoodcohousing.com


"Truth is rarely pure and never simple."
    - Oscar Wilde
**********************************************************
> Date: Thu, 24 Jul 2003 12:42:12 -0500
> Subject: Re: [C-L]_Re: Refining concerns / needs
> From: Becky Weaver <becky_weaver [at] io.com>
> To: <cohousing-l [at] cohousing.org>
> Reply-To: cohousing-l [at] cohousing.org
> 
> Sharon wrote: 
> 
>> I think the key is setting goals for a proposal before it is written and
>> then discussing it terms of whether it accomplishes those goals. Does it
>> meet the criteria? Are there any objections? And you move on.
> 
> I have found that a proposal yields better decisions in a shorter time if
> *in the proposal* a committee documents the following:
> 
> 1) Describe the problem the proposal was developed to solve.
> 2) Describe the goals & criteria used to develop the proposal.
> 3) Describe the proposal in terms of how it solves the problem and meets the
> criteria.
> 
> Then, when we present the proposal, we also:
> 
> 4) Mention the "obvious" solutions and why we didn't go with them (if
> applicable). 
> 5) Explain the results of the proposal in terms of how we expect it to
> affect an individual and the group.
> 
> Generally our proposals have a lot of work done on them in committee before
> presentation at general meeting. Those who weren't at the committee meeting
> naturally feel more confidence in the proposal if they see evidence of the
> committee's thought process.
> 
> Step 2 is especially vital. Committees are often not representative of the
> group as a whole. Especially in the case of a committee like Finance;
> people who find money management interesting are on the committee, and
> people who find money management stressful are not. (How about that?) So
> when Finance brought a proposal, it seemed to be met with an unfortunate
> combination of suspicion (just what are those money-grubbers trying to
> pull?), boredom (oh, numbers ... I wonder what's for potluck?), and a focus
> on re-solving the initial problem (did you think of this? What about that?).
> 
> Then we started presenting our proposals as above. And lo and behold,
> suddenly we were getting head-nodding, productive discussion, and relatively
> quick passage of a proposal with real consensus. The discussion would focus
> on constructive ideas & feelings (the principles Sharon noted in her post),
> and result in a better decision than the initial proposal.
> 
> A final benefit is that when new folks review our decisions, all that
> information is documented, so they have an easier time catching up on the
> group's history. I am hoping it will make people less likely to want to go
> back and re-hash old decisions.
> 
> Becky Weaver
> Central Austin Cohousing

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