Hand signals have become part of every meeting in some activist circles. Even when there’s no formal agreement to use them you’ll find a percentage of folk doing so anyway. There are very good reasons to use hand signals (which I’ll recap at the end), but there are also very real dangers. I’m minded of […]
I’ve been reflecting on our recent blog interview with Tim Hartnett originator of Consensus oriented decision-making (CODM). We focused quite a lot on the rigour that the 7 steps of CODM bring to the decision-making process. In his book Tim’s defined the steps in detail, the detail does seem to provide facilitators and groups with […]
Here’s the second in a series of posts on near-consensus alternatives. In this post we’re talking to Tim Hartnett, facilitator, mediator and counsellor about Consensus Oriented Decision-Making (CODM, pronounced co-dem). Tim has developed CODM and has outlined the method in his recent book Consensus-Oriented Decision-Making: The CODM Model for Facilitating Groups to Widespread Agreement. Tell […]
Seems like a while since I got round to reflecting on the work we’ve been doing on the blog, so here’s a quick catch up. Common Ground Since its inception Climate Camp has been an amazing experiment in working by consensus, a kind of petri dish or hothouse. It’s tried to create a process capable […]
From September 2011 to June 2012 Turning the Tide in collaboration with Huddersfield Quakers and other local peace and social justice groups are hosting a series of workshop called ‘Nonviolence for a Change.’ This is a training programme for people with some experience of working with others to address injustices and make changes. Dates and […]
As our contribution to Co-operatives Fortnight, June 25th to July 9th, we thought we’d share our enthusiasm for consensus decision-making. So we’ve written a short briefing on Consensus in Co-operatives Which you can download for free. We’ll also make a print-ready version available from our resources page. The briefing argues the case for consensus being […]
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 […]
In our last post on consensus we talked about near-consensus alternatives. Here’s the first in a series of posts that explore near-consensus alternatives. By near-consensus, I simply mean methods that share some of consensus’ analysis if the problems of traditional majoritarian decision-making and are trying to explore ways to deepen dialogue and produce results that […]
In her book Truth or Dare, Starhawk wrote some oft-quoted and wise words on When not to use consensus. They stand re-quoting, and I’ve had the cheek to add a few thoughts: When there is no group in mind: A group thinking process cannot work effectively unless the group is cohesive enough to generate shared […]
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 […]
