Cohousing-L Mailing List: Process Committees

[Melanie Mindlin (sassetta]

Hi Nancy,

There are a couple of different ways to answer your question. On the emotional 
level, I would say we were pretty desperate for a way out of our situation. Our 
meetings had become stressful, poorly attended and unproductive. In my opinion, 
many people came for the sole reasons of making sure nothing was done that they 
wouldn’t want to happen.

From a process point of view, the proposal meticulously followed our rules for 
bringing a proposal to the group when it doesn’t clearly fall under the purview 
of a committee. It was written with a great deal of specificity to try to avoid 
misinterpretation later. Our process  includes the following:

1) Bring it to a plenary meeting as a “problem” or "general idea” for a 
discussion about values and other feedback.
2) Convene an ad-hoc committee to discuss the issue and formulate a proposal.  
Anyone can attend this meeting or meetings, but it is expected that at least a 
few people will be involved rather than a single individual.
3) Circulate the proposal at least one week before the next plenary at which it 
will be discussed so people have time to read and think about it. 
4) Bring it to the plenary as a formal proposal for consensus.
5) Sometimes if there are significant concerns, we don’t push for consensus at 
that meeting but instead send it back to the committee for further discussion. 
Those bringing concerns are expected to attend.
6) Bring the proposal back to plenary for a formal consensus. At this point, if 
anyone blocks, it goes through our Consensus Minus One blocking process, in 
which the person blocking has to identify at least one other person who also is 
willing to block due to concerns (not just to support their right to block). 
These people are required to meet up to 3 times in 6 weeks with those bringing 
the proposal to work for a solution.

In the case of this proposal, concerns were raised about how we would take care 
of important business if setting the agenda was left up to individuals, and the 
proposal was modified to include a mandatory 20 minutes at each meeting for 
business, an annual meeting for our budget and elections that was not in the 
rotation, a review after the first year, along with a few other minor 
corrections.  When it was brought back to plenary, it was blocked by an 
individual with a couple of other people expressing concerns. After some 
confusion about our correct process, the blocker was asked to identify their 
official supporter, and a couple of people were named. Upon inquiry, these 
people were unwilling to actually block the proposal.  So it passed and was 
instituted after the following plenary.

I will also note that we have had no issues at all in taking care of business, 
and nobody has even asked to use the 20 minutes set aside for that purpose.  
Attendance has improved, our newer members feel honored to have the chance to 
set the agenda and facilitate, and the whole process has been met with 
curiosity and support.

Melanie

> On Dec 19, 2022, at 3:16 AM, cohousing-l-request [at] cohousing.org wrote:
> 
> Date: Sun, 18 Dec 2022 12:17:47 -0800
> From: Nancy Morehouse <nmorehouse [at] aol.com <mailto:nmorehouse [at] 
> aol.com>>
> To: cohousing-l [at] cohousing.org <mailto:cohousing-l [at] cohousing.org>
> Subject: Re: [C-L]_ Process Committees
> Message-ID: <E0BAC1F9-9348-443F-91E8-9D5D8F9951B4 [at] aol.com 
> <mailto:E0BAC1F9-9348-443F-91E8-9D5D8F9951B4 [at] aol.com>>
> Content-Type: text/plain;     charset=utf-8
> 
> Hi Melanie,
> 
> How did the "rotating facilitation through everyone" agreement get buy-in and 
> approval?
> 
> Thanks,
> Nancy Morehouse
> Wolf Creek Lodge
> Grass Valley, CA
> 
> 
>> On Dec 15, 2022, at 5:16 PM, Melanie Mindlin <sassetta [at] mind.net 
>> <mailto:sassetta [at] mind.net>> wrote:
>> 
>> Hi Elizabeth
>> 
>> Our community started out with something called a Facilitation Committee 
>> which handled the formation of the plenary (whole group) meeting agendas and 
>> the facilitation of the meetings, along with some smaller tasks such as 
>> planning a yearly whole group training and ongoing discussion of 
>> facilitation techniques.  There was a perception by a segment of the 
>> community that this group held and exerted unequal power within the 
>> community.  Though ostensibly open to all, some felt that it was cliquish 
>> and uncomfortable for others to join.
>> 
>> Upon the advice of facilitation trainer Laird Shaub, we attempted to 
>> separate these two main functions. and formed a new committee called the 
>> Process Team whose job was to collect and evaluate agenda items as to their 
>> readiness to come to the plenary meeting, and form the agenda.  The 
>> facilitation team was meant to be a separate group from which we would 
>> recruit facilitators for the meetings, and who would follow up with 
>> preparation with the presenters, as well as evaluating and improving 
>> facilitation skills.  The intention was to break up the power dynamic by 
>> having a different group of people with the power to set the agenda from 
>> those who had the power as facilitators to set the approach to discussion 
>> and decisions within the meetings.
>> 
>> Sadly, the new Process Team ended up being mostly the same people who had 
>> been resented on the earlier Facilitation team.  It was difficult to find 
>> other people to facilitate, partly because our meetings had become 
>> contentious, so this same small group would step up at the last minute to 
>> facilitate as well..  Improvement of facilitation skills was pretty much 
>> dropped. 
>> 
>> The evaluation process  for ?plenary readiness,? as well as needing 
>> consensus approval from the members of the Process Team for items to be on 
>> the agenda, while well intentioned and useful in some situations, ended up 
>> exacerbating the power dynamics in the group. Combined with some 
>> intransigent interpersonal conflict, we ended up in a tangle with about half 
>> the community wanting to dissolve the whole concept of self-management 
>> because it was so stressful.
>> 
>> At that point, we decided to try something completely different. We are now 
>> rotating facilitation through the entire community in alphabetical order, 
>> giving each meeting?s facilitator the power to set the agenda. Facilitators 
>> are encouraged to bring any topic or mini-training that they think is 
>> important or useful for the community to discuss. 20 minutes of each meeting 
>> is allocated to ?business items? that require plenary approval. As a 
>> well-established community, we actually have very little business that is 
>> not handled within our committees who are all operating quite effectively. 
>> 
>> We?re almost a year into this, and about half way through our rotation, and 
>> things are going quite smoothly. The proposal was to revert to the previous 
>> structure when everyone has had a chance to facilitate, though I personally 
>> think this may not be such a good idea.
>> 
>> I understand that this may not work well for new communities with lots of 
>> business requiring their attention.  I?m sure others will write with copious 
>> suggestions, so I will just add that in my opinion, the more you can 
>> delegate to small groups, the easier your decision making process will be. 
>> 
>> Good luck with everything,
>> Melanie
>> Ashland Cohousing
>>