At this year’s Green Gathering festival near Chepstow I bought a book called From Democracy to Freedom. It is produced by Crimethinc, which among many other descriptions says that it is an international network of aspiring revolutionaries. Their book led me to an article on the Occupy Wall Street website called Occupiers! Stop Using Consensus! […]
One of our cousin training collectives, Seeds for Change, have produced new videos about how to take decisions and feel empowered and listened to through consensus decision‑making. Intro to consensus decision-making video The consensus process video Key values, attitudes and behaviours video The last video also explains the need for facilitation, addressing power and privilege […]
Consensus decision-making is in crisis. I suspect it always has been and possibly always will be simply because it’s a process used by human beings. Wherever you look groups, coops and networks are struggling with consensus. Moreover they’re often having to adopt or invent mechanisms to deal with a breakdown in the process. And many […]
We talk a lot about consensus on this blog. Supporting groups to navigate the sometimes less than clear waters of consensus is a large part of our work. Over the last year or so I’ve spoken to several fellow consensus trainers about work we’ve done together from the 2005 G8 protests onwards. One of the […]
We covered a fair bit of ground in the first part of our tour of consensus past and present, but it was never going to be a complete survey of all movements and peoples who use consensus or consensus-like decision-making. So here’s a second installment. In it we look at The Aymara people of Bolivia […]
It’s not surprising that passionate proponents of consensus decision-making might want to root their ideas firmly in history. After all it gives consensus greater authority and legitimacy. However, this is often done as a few short paragraphs or even a few short lines. When asked recently to focus on the history of consensus for a […]
There comes a point in the consensus process where you have to test for consensus, that is actively ask the group whether or not there is agreement for the proposal that’s under discussion. The success of that test is dependent on the foundation you’ve collectively built so far. If the group has worked well together […]
Opening and holding open a broad and inclusive discussion can be hard: there are usually some people in any group that want to rush to the decision. The irony is that once you’ve successfully opened a discussion it can be hard to stop people talking and draw the discussion together to begin the process of […]
So the group are clear on the topic of the discussion – they’ve checked out assumptions and have an agreed process for moving forward. Now the real work begins. If you remember back to our consensus flowchart the middle stages involve a broad exploratory discussion out of which we try to draw a proposal, a […]
Step 1: Getting some clarity So you’re facilitating a meeting for a group that uses consensus decision-making. Maybe you’re a member of the group, maybe you’ve been invited as an outside facilitator. How best to start? What problems can you foresee and what can you do to avoid them becoming a reality, or deal with […]
