Clarification of CoTech decision-making process

I still seem to be reading about a voting system, when I would like to be reading about a consensus decision-making system. If the rules are that a proposal with no blocks goes ahead, together with the sense that a block should mean "I'll leave if this goes through", that leaves a minefield of proposals that could legitimately be accepted even if a majority disagreed, which makes no sense in my view of consensus.

For comparison, Loomio suggests that blocks mean "Block means you’ve got serious objections and you’ll be extremely unhappy if this proposal goes ahead." not that you would leave.

I know there is much diverse practice on this question of stating one's consensus position, and we have to work out something that suits this particular group of people. All I can say at this stage is that, if the intention is some kind of consensus, a voting system makes no sense outside the scope of a discussion of the wider consensus process.

Our co-op, Cetis LLP has been running fine on a simpler consensus basis of agree / stand aside / block, for 10 members so far. For quite a different perspective, I am centrally involved in discussing the consensus process in our Cohousing community of over 60 members, where maybe half turn up to General Meetings to make decisions. This is far, far more challenging. And that's where we can see each other face to face, which certainly helps.

I would suggest a much deeper and more thorough exploration of consensus decision making. It means far more than "no blocks".

I guess there isn't yet the shared understanding and experience that is needed for people to arrive at a meaningful consensus on this. And it does, clearly, affect everyone, not like a matter for one technical discussion.

So I wonder if it would be a good idea to have a video conference about this? I suspect this would turn something that will take for ever into something manageable that can be agreed within a reasonable time.

To start with, maybe we could agree the principles behind consensus decision making? To me, this is at least both for better quality decisions, and for maintaining the group cohesion and general good relationships, with a clear sense of collective ownership of the decisions made, and the avoidance of factions where possible.

Then, the four different responses mean different things in virtue of what happens as a result. If it is accepted that people only respond "disagree" where they are personally negatively affected, and they are willing to contribute to a better proposal, then the default could well be that the proposal goes into a revision or reframing stage. It's not failing, it's under development or improvement. "Block" could be reserved for cases where someone sees the proposal not only as damaging, but also as not able to be revised into something acceptable. The blocker should, of course, explain why.

If it is vital, for some reason, that some proposal goes ahead, then there needs to be a way of resolving the matter despite "disagree" positions, but only after serious attempts at resolving the disagreement have been made. To go ahead with a proposal with a "disagree", without properly hearing out the views of the person disagreeing (and them having the sense that they are properly heard) is a recipe for resentment and eventual division. That's the valuable message of "disagree" -- it means that the person needs to be heard and understood. When they are heard and understood, there is a much better chance of moving towards a fuller consensus.

In these kinds of ways, the consensus process needs to be spelled out and agreed, so that it is much more than the rules governing counting "votes" to see which proposal "passes". Voting, by itself, does not mean that the voter is heard or understood, or is able to contribute to a fuller consensus.

Apologies for the length of this -- I have much clearer views since I have seen this kind of consensus process, and its potential pitfalls, in action.

Hi Simon,

To reiterate the purpose of this proposal: we didn't know how to interpret the results of GreenNet's membership application and would like to avoid/reduce that uncertainty. We've suggested a simple set of rules that should allow us to interpret proposal results in future. It might be useful to clarify that GreenNet's membership request would have been approved if interpreted using these rules (8 agree, 2 abstain and 3 disagree).

We're not wedded to the set of rules proposed but think it's important to have something. Can you imagine us adopting something like this for now (maybe you can propose an alternative?) and evolving it over time to get to the sort of consensus decision making system you describe?

Chris

Hi Chris @chrisroos

(Apologies to anyone for whom what I write seems obvious — I hope you will excuse my sense that this would benefit from being surfaced.)

I'm guessing that you're feeling uncertainty about how decisions get made within the CoTech community, and you need some clarity; the strategy that is being proposed is that we have a formula for translating people's Loomio responses into a decision. You haven't expressed an opinion on this yet, as far as I can see.

Well, in my experience, as well as what I hear and read elsewhere, there are two positive values that sometimes appear to be in tension. One of these values is associated with the words simple, easy, quick, efficient — wanting a process by which people can get on with life, with business, with their day. The other value I sense here is the value that is expressed with words such as solidarity, harmony, friendliness, agreement, and indeed consensus.

To me, this a genuine and valid tension — there is no magic solution. Too much emphasis on consensus, and decisions are not made, leading to frustration and one kind of break-up. Too much emphasis on speed and simplicity and decisions are made that upset some people, lead to them feeling unheard, and risks break-up in a different way.

One way of approaching this tension is to set out a scale of response that allows people some way of expressing a level of unhappiness. This is what Loomio's system allows — so people don't just say "yes" or "no", but there is a position – blocking – which allows people to express major difficulties with a proposal.

And this is fine, as far as it goes. Everyone I know recognises that in practice, to make organisations work, most people sometime have to accept decisions that they personally disagree with. This is expressed through Loomio in the distinction between "disagree" and "block". So it's fine — the proposal is fine — as the last stage of decision making.

My whole point here is that, especially in an online community where people don't get to see each other face to face, this is only the end point. A good consensus decision making system, to my mind, is one which uses the decision making process as one of the tools to surface opinions and to hear people's feelings as well as their rational judgements. A good consensus decision is one that results in decisions that people are as comfortable with as they can be, thus increasing, rather than reducing, both the sense of ownership of the decisions, and the sense of membership and identity in the group.

When a decision is made prematurely, the decision could easily have missed an alternative that people would be happier with. And this is, to me, the missing part of the jigsaw, without which we don't have a consensus decision making process, but just – well – a more sophisticated voting system.

What I think would work well enough is some kind of agreement about minimum standards for offering people who express a "disagree" a chance to be heard and understood, and for their points, their opinions, their feelings as well, to be taken into account. (Naturally, that doesn't have to mean "complied with"!)

I don't know of any perfect formulation of this, by the way. Probably many people are working on it. But as I'm writing, I could suggest some ideas towards a possible formulation. For me, a consensus decision — perhaps following this proposal — is valid when every person who expresses disagreement has been properly heard and understood in the way that they would like to be understood. The only way to be sure of this is to reflect back to those who disagree, and wait for them to confirm that they have been heard. I'm not sure of exactly how this works in an online forum, but we should be able to do that somehow. And, perhaps, that some reasonable effort has been made to use that understanding to formulate an alternative proposal that would be more agreeable all round. This might not work, of course — but the fact that is has been done is likely to keep the people who disagree "on board". That's what matters in a voluntary association.

Sorry about the length, it was flowing... :smiley:

Simon

Thanks for doing another great proposal @chrisroos - I agree it would be good to firm up decision making. We're also really keen to sort out the framework agreement as we've put collaborations on hold until we have more clarity on that.

I believe we're going to host a London-based CoTech meetup in the not-too-distant where we can hopefully progress things a bit and come back with some more fleshed out proposals.

Would anyone be up for hosting a similar event in the north and or scotland? @louisescott ?@asimong ? @edrussell ?

Hi @harryrobbins -- I would really appreciate some response or reference to what I have written above, which would meet my need to be heard (and on a good day with a fair wind, understood :wink: ) Would you be willing to tell me how you respond to my message?

@asimong I find it quite hard to follow very long discussions online, hence suggesting meeting face to face.

I'm not sure I fully understand your suggestions but from what I understand you are suggesting that we spend longer making decisions and understanding each others points of view, rather than racing to a false consensus.

Your proposal makes me feel scared that CoTech could turn into a talking shop rather than an engine of action. I think we made great progress when we met up and when we actually work together.

To me sociocracy (which Loomio facilitates) is not about consensus but about making a series of "good enough" decisions that can be improved upon later (see http://www.sociocracy.info/consent-versus-consensus/).

At Outlandish we make thousands of decisions per day, including a few with a full sociocratic process, and we spend very little time doing it even though some of these decisions could cost us tens or hundreds of thousands of pounds. Currently CoTech has no capital, no turnover and no staff so I think it should be making decisions faster than Outlandish rather than slower.

I agree with your point that there is a tension between people who see it as a business process and those that see it as something else. I personally see decision making (and other governance) as the former. I think solidarity, community and consensus are best built in other ways.

Building consensus is difficult, perhaps impossible in some situations, without the benefit of face to face discussion in my view, as the exchanges miss out so much non-verbal communication that can be crucial in a face to face meeting. With that in mind I think that a simple set of rules, such as has been proposed, is a workable solution. At the same time it is important that people take care to set our their views clearly and succinctly.

On the point of having no quorum I would disagree. If the orgs/people that are part of CoTech value their membership, then they should engage in the dialogue and decision-making process. If a proposal is set out that isn't relevant to them then they can simply abstain (and I say that as someone that has ignored stuff). I'd suggest that at least 50% of the members should participate (i.e. register their position) in a proposal if it is to be deemed viable.

I'd suggest that at least 50% of the members should participate (i.e. register their position) in a proposal if it is to be deemed viable.

Hi @graham2. We did discuss this before opening the proposal but had the sense that we hadn't regularly achieved 50% participation and that such a requirement might mean that it's even harder to make any decisions using Loomio.

I've just been through the 15 proposals to date to work out the level of participation. The summary is that we've only had a single proposal that I can confidently say reached 50% participation. There were some voters that I couldn't match to coops so this number goes up to 7 proposals with 50% participation if we assume that each of those voters represented a different co-op. There's more information available in https://gist.github.com/chrisroos/6a5fc69bddee182f2759a14466ed4fed.

I think our preference would be to accept the proposal as-is and to tackle the issue of participation separately.

Thank you, @harryrobbins — that really does contribute to my sense of being heard. For my part, I recognise your fear of action being lost in prolonged discussion, and I am aware that many people share that concern — myself included. Maybe some people have developed a kind of allergic reaction to the word "consensus", associated with this kind of fear.

Let me say it is very important to me that we address those fears. We cannot operate effectively within a system where discussion is able to be endlessly prolonged.

On the other side, sometimes the side less spoken about, people get to feel alienation when decisions are made that seem to them to negate or ignore their own concerns or fears. Nor is it simply two kinds of people. There are many people – most? – in between, who maybe go along with pushed decisions, but are not really happy, or are not happy because some people they cared about now feel alienated or have left.

I'm curious about your implicit belief that if there is less money at stake the decision should be quicker. Why do you believe that?

I'm also curious about what you might mean by saying that decision making and governance are "business processes" — as opposed to what? To me, "business" cannot be done properly, in a co-operative spirit, without agreement. Contracts that are forced on one side are not good for business in the long term. So to me, good business, internally, means getting good decisions. When is a decision "good enough"?

I hear that you think that solidarity and community are best built in other ways — but what ways?

To me, it is best in practice, as well as in principle, if business, solidarity and community are built together with interrelated processes and practices. I would sincerely hope that one does not detract from the other.