Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Consensus, Majority vote, blocks

[Sharon Villines (sharon]

On 26 Sep 2011, at 1:47 PM, Lynn Nadeau / Maraiah wrote:

> The best-case discussion circle  
> evolves opinions. A first go-round airs the opinions and concerns  
> people arrive with. Almost always, a later round shows changes: "Now  
> that I heard what Joe said,..." , "I hadn't thought of what Sue  
> suggested,,," and not uncommonly, opinions may flip significantly.

This is a good idea - a "doing rounds meeting." Many of us love rounds but 
others think they take too much time and "people always say the same thing." We 
don't do rounds well, some people lecture and many say I agree with so and so 
when the point is not to agree but to focus each person and their expression of 
themselves. People who pass are likely to be angry and the facilitator will 
return to them later. In later rounds more people pass or give short answers 
because they have clearly expressed themselves already.

My experience is like Lynn's — people change with each round. 

One of the sociocracy facilitators in Montreal, Gilles Charest, says the 
purpose of a round is create a group, to focus everyone on each other. Each 
time people walk in the room, they are different. The group has to be recreated 
because you can't make a group decision without a group. He says it will 
typically take 3 rounds before people are ready to begin making decisions.

The attitude that people are different each time they enter the room, I think 
is important. If we expect people to be changed each time they appear, they are 
more likely to be or become more flexible.

Sharon
------
Sharon Villines, Washington DC
"On the whole human beings want to be good, but not too good, and not quite all 
the time." George Orwell