Cohousing-L Mailing List: Moz's description of meeting process

[Diana Leafe Christian (diana]

> Hello,

	Oh my gosh, Moz, the kind of meeting culture you describe below  
sounds awful. It sounds as if these community meetings don't have a  
skilled facilitator. A facilitator for a consensus meeting (I assume  
you're using consensus?) is _supposed_ to graciously yet firmly stop  
digressions/cross-town buses, interruptions, repetitions, people  
talking over each other, accusations, blame, and ill will flying  
across the room. I've been using consensus first in a nonprofit and  
now at my community, for 18 years total, and was a consensus trainer  
myself for 6 years, and I can tell you that these kinds of behaviors  
are "illegal" in terms of how consensus was designed to function. I'm  
wondering what are your facilitators are doing when these meeting  
behaviors occur. Stunned into speechless immobility like a deer in the  
headlights? Unable to deal with it because it's too overwhelming? If  
so,  there are relatively easy-to-implement things a facilitator can  
do, with good will and courtesy, to stop these behaviors. I highly  
recommend both Tree Bressen's facilitation workshops in the Pacific  
Northwest, Laird and Ma'ikwe's regional two-year consensus  
facilitation trainings. Both are designed to help facilitators in  
cohousing and other kinds of communities improve their skills. These  
kinds of meeting behaviors should _never_ happen.

Diana Leafe Christian
Ecovillages newsletter

> Date: Mon, 14 Jan 2013 08:11:29 +1100
> From: Moz <list [at] moz.geek.nz>
>
> R.P. Aditya said:
> > The reason for that explicit request to make decisions in a meeting  
> > in
> > the policy is that just as there are so many of us who use the  
> > written
> > word to communicate effectively, we also have to include those who
> > prefer to do it verbally.
>
> Unfortunately they usually also say "and everyone has to participate
> in the verbal process". Which actively excludes people who can't deal
> with large groups of people constantly talking at each other and
> interrupting and digressing and just talkiingovereachother and there
> are lots of them and they keep talking at me and demanding stuff from
> me and there are so many of them and they talk so fast and what they
> say doesn't make sense even when they say it several times which they
> always do and how long is this going to go on for and if you demand
> that I speak why won't you listen when I do why can't I leave and
> that's not what I said when will it stop.
>
> But I'll accept that. On the proviso that the decision will be written
> down. No caveats, no post-hoc exceptions based on stuff that didn't
> get recorded. If it's not in the written decision, it's not part of
> the decision. Part of the process, by all means, but not part of the
> final decision.
>
> > However much I (and apparently you) would prefer the clarity of
> > written discussions, there are times when the emotional content
> > isn't carried or misinterpreted in writing or simply doesn't suit
> > everyone.
>
> I can understand that some people like face to face meetings. I like
> that they do, really. But for me those meetings are a lot of work,
> hard to process, unpleasant, usually tedious, and too often result in
> people disagreeing with me about how I feel. Usually to my face, and
> vigorously. At the very least I need to have an audio recording of the
> meeting so I can review it and try to understand what happened (the
> recording is often an issue).
>
> Also, "great social skills" must necessarily mean the ability to deal
> effectively with people having different levels of social skills. This
> nonsense that someone has "great skills" but those skills can be
> accidentally defeated by someone whose skills are not great? Does not
> make sense. In other field an expert is still an expert in the
> presence of someone dumb as a rock.
>
> Moz