Pages

Friday, March 26, 2010

The Challenges of Seeking Consensus

Over the past three months, the Public Participation Learning Community has been exploring the challenges of consensus, as well as resources for being able to achieve it in various participatory processes. We've explored polling tools, to take the 'temperature' of the group at any given point in time without it being 'voting' with an implication of decision-making momentum, and we've examined the curcumstances where really taking the time to achieve a consensus decison makes sense.

The key, from my perspective, is to approach consensus-seeking in the context of a respectful, genuinely collaborative effort to meld interests and seek solutions in which all are free to express dissent, reservations, and questions. The worst types of results are those that emerge from the 'tyranny of mediocrity,' that exhaustive point in group process where people simply no longer have energy to explore the "groan zone" and accomodate the powerful in order to save face, avoid conflict, or otherwise close the conversation. Consensus must truly be a way towards insight and improved solutions that consider the diverse perspectives and needs of stakeholders (both represented at the table direectly and otherwise considered). I'm excited that the group will now be turning its attention to the challenge of integrating the expression of dissent into our processes, whether for use in consensus deliberations or those that make decisions in other ways.

I invite PPLC members and others to offer comments on our learning these past few months, as well as to post resources we have uncovered for ths work.

-Harry