10-4 Consensus Decision-Making

Many people do not believe consensus can work.  They feel it holds people hostage to the least common denominator, or allows one person to veto the progress of the rest.  `In fact, as many of you know, consensus can produce very creative results that go beyond what anyone would have thought of in the beginning.  That is why it is so important to help people search for their most important interests, rather than debate about their positions.  However, if a group doesn’t structure itself to seek consensus, and commit to work for it, it will never get there.  So, it is very important that the participants commit to work together to seek agreement (consensus).  This requires committing to truly understand one another’s perspectives and needs and to search for complementary ways to meet interests.

It is also true, that a group cannot always reach agreement, or can reach agreement on some parts of an issue, but not on all of it.  Therefore, it is important to be clear at the outset on what happens if consensus is not reached–the “fallback” method for reaching an outcome.  The fallback depends on the situation:  Who has the power to make a decision or take action if the group does not support it?  Sometimes an agency can say that if the group doesn’t reach a consensus, the agency will make the decision as if this had been a traditional input process.  Sometimes, the fallback is that a report will be submitted to the agency, the legislature or whoever has authority, outlining the areas of agreement, the areas of disagreement and the reasons for each.  If indeed no action can be taken unless all the parties agree to it, then the fallback is the status quo.

Assessing the fallback to a lack of consensus helps all the participants recognize what their own “BATNA” (best alternative to a negotiated agreement) is.  This should be part of the assessment before a collaborative is convened.  If one party has a really good BATNA, then they probably have little motivation to really work for consensus.  They may feel they can “win” without the others.

There are a number of facilitation tools that help groups work together to search for consensus.  These are used throughout Phase 2 – Agreement Seeking in both the Education and the Negotiation-Resolution steps.  In the Organization Step, you want to be sure the group is structuring itself so as to develop the relationships and the process to allow it to work together well to develop consensus.

Questions or comments?

 

10-3 The How: Group Structure and Process

The final element in organizing a group is designing the structure that will allow the group members to work together in order to accomplish its defined purpose and achieve its outcomes.  The structure serves to give the group its form in which to operate and defines the overall organizational structure (roles, meeting times, committees) as well as the processes that will guide its decision making, conflict resolution, and operational rules.

The following two slides are examples of two very different structures for accomplishing the purpose of a group. The first relies on a committee structure with representatives serving on a core coordination team.

The second chart illustrates a typical “accordion” design with representatives of diverse interest groups coming together for planning and decision making then taking those decisions back out to their constituencies for input.

The other part of a group’s structure is defining its decision making processes and other operational agreements including its meeting ground rules, communication with the media, etc. The better the group is able to define these ahead of time, the more it will avoid problems later in the process.

If compliance with the Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA) is a concern, it should be considered in how the process is designed.  A separate post on FACA considerations will follow.  However, at this point you should be able to reflect on your project and recommend a basic structural design you think best suits the situation.  How would you advise the group to be structured?  Would there be one agreement-seeking group which meets all together all the time with no other input or meetings?  Or would there need to be some kind of central group that is representative of special sub-groups or task groups that meet between sessions of the larger group?  How often would the group(s) meet; what kind of time frame would they be looking at?  Is there a need to take parts of the process to the larger public?  Or to have public input on occasion or at every meeting?  How might that be handled?  Put together any ideas you have on how your group might be structured, and post them as Student Blog Assignment (HOMEWORK) 10-3.

Since one of the principles of collaborative agreement seeking processes is “consensus based decision-making”, we’ll explore consensus a bit in the next blog before we put all the organizational pieces together in a set of working agreements for the group.

Any questions so far?

10-2 Who: Defining Group Composition

Another element that must be addressed in the group’s organization stage is “who” will be part of the group. In a collaborative agreement seeking process, it is important to include those stakeholders who are needed to implement a solution as well as those who might have the power to block the implementation of a solution.

As this chart suggests, in pulling a group together it is important to consider not just what interests should be at the table, but who might be the best individual to represent that interest. It may be that a member of an organization is more apt to be respected or trusted by the group or is more temperamentally suited to work in a collaborative process than someone else from that same organization.  The organization needs to select its representative, but it is helpful to have relevant feedback from the neutral assessor, and to choose someone who will work well collaboratively.

Look back at your External Stakeholder Worksheet and any other information you gathered in your assessment work in your Student Assignment blog post 9-0 and related analysis, and pull together a list of the people (or at least the organizations, if you don’t know the people) whom you now would assess need to be part of this collaborative agreement seeking process, given the way the purpose has now been framed.  Post it in the Student Assignment blog post 10-2.  Post comments or questions on the topic below.

10-1 “What”: Defining the Group’s Purpose

In Blog Posts 6 to 6- 3 we explored the importance of framing the issue to include the interests of all participants.  In the organizing stage, the group builds on how the issue has been framed to make sure they are all in agreement that the purpose of the group is to resolve the defined (framed) issue. A group’s purpose should spell out what they are going to do and the outcome the group is seeking.

Here are some actual examples of different groups’ purposes:

“The purpose of the Non-Roadway Work Group is to develop recommendations for sustainable funding of non-roadway transportation, including rail, marine, aviation, transit, and on and off-road bicycle and pedestrian paths.”

“The purpose of this core group is to better understand and define the key issues surrounding population forecasting for urban growth planning and develop recommendations for addressing those issues.”

“This task force is to develop recommendations to the Eugene City Council for addressing the needs and impacts for the unhoused in the community.”

A group purpose defines what general issue a group is resolving and what outcome they are seeking to achieve. The group may well break the general issue into many parts as it goes along.  It could even decide that some of the parts are NOT within the scope of its work.  It continually clarifies the issues it is solving, but it is important that there is general agreement on what is to be solved at the outset.  This serves to give the group clear direction and focus as well as defining the outcomes it seeks to accomplish to measure its success.

Recall the range of framing possibilities suggested for the Mt. Winhootchy issue in Blog Post 6-2.  Now apply that to your project and, based on your assumed assessment of the stakeholders, and using the guidelines below, develop a framing of the issue to be solved and the potential outcome (product) desired as a result.

Post the framing of your project as a statement of purpose for the collaborative group in the 10-1 Student blog assignments.  Reply below with any questions or comments about framing the issues and creating a purpose statement for a collaborative group.

10-0 Collaborative Process Step 2: Organization

The organization stage is a critical design element in the convening phase that addresses some of the organizational issues that will enable the group to do its collaborative work together.   Let’s look back at our frame work at this stage.

The group needs to agree on key organizational elements which are:

• What it is going to do (purpose, outcomes, etc.)
• Who is going to be needed to do it (members, roles, etc.)
• How it will be done (structure, decision making, communication protocols.

The answers to these questions are documented in the form of “working agreements” or “operating principles” that guide the group’s work.  Groups who overlook this stage or don’t agree on some of the basic elements that form the group will often have trouble later in the process. After completing the assessment, the neutral facilitator should have a good idea of the key elements that will be necessary in designing the process to help the parties work well together, but it is good to include the participants in a feedback loop as the process design comes together.

Each one of the three organizational elements will be addressed in separate posts that follow.

9-3 Collaboration Assessment

Now you have the information from a cross section of stakeholders about what they think is the Problem to be solved, the People to be involved and the various Parameters to be dealt with.  How do you put that together to decide whether to go forward to convene a collaborative process?  You need to analyze the data you’ve received.

Review the Key Factors Supporting Successful Collaborative Processes.  Review the information you have from stakeholders and analyze the key factors present in relation to:

BATNA = Best Alternative to a Negotiated Agreement

Keep in mind that Collaboration is NOT always the answer, however, collaboration may achieve results that are more widely accepted and durable.  The success of a collaborative effort may depend on the thoroughness of the assessment.

ANALYZE your assessment information to determine whether to continue forward to design a collaborative decision making process to address this problem/dilemma.  The analysis worksheet below may be helpful in this analysis, though remember, similar to the internal analysis worksheet, there is no “formula” to determine the right course.

If you want to try for a score, read the Suitability Ranking explanation.  After you have worked with your data, record your analysis of your project in blog assignment 9-3 Collaboration Assessment.  

Reply below with any questions, comments or insights related to this exercise.  Often, the neutral facilitator doing an assessment will write an assessment report to give back to the initiating agency and to those interviewed. Two examples of assessment reports are posted here for your information:

• LYB Executive Summary
• FKW_Stakeholder_Assessment

9-2 External Assessment Summary of Perspectives

To the extent you can imagine the various perspectives of the stakeholders you have decided to interview, record them in a summary fashion.  (Assume you interviewed them.)  Below is a worksheet to demonstrate how you might record the information.

Post a summary of your external assessment data in the blog assignments under 9-2.  Reply here with any general questions, comments or insights on this stage.

9-1 Interviewing Stakeholders

Once you have identified your stakeholders, you must decide which ones to interview in order to gain enough of a cross section of perspectives to help you assess the likelihood of collaborative success.

Decide which ones you will interview, then develop your interview protocol.

Develop a set of interview questions that would help you assess the readiness of your project for collaboration.  Below is a set of sample questions to help you get started.

List the key stakeholders you have decided need to be interviewed and the interview protocol (set of questions) you would follow in the student blog assignments under 9-1.  Reply below with any comments, questions or insights.  A sample interview protocol for your review is the WHI Draft Inteview Protocol.

9-0 Conducting a Neutral External Assessment

Now we will return to our project, and use the concept of discovering interests as we complete the assessment process.  It is important to discover as much about the underlying interests of potential participants in a process as possible.  Indeed, you probably did that in completing the Internal Assessment.

Collaborative Decision Making Step 1: Assessment and Planning
Once you have completed the Internal Assessment, assuming there is still willingness to  pursue a collaborative approach, you are ready to move on to the External Assessment.  You will find the external assessment very similar to the internal–another twist on the spiral as you work to develop the process.  However, instead of just getting the perspective of those within the initiating agency or organization, you now seek to understand the perspectives of all those who might be needed to support an implementable outcome.

Rarely is it possible for this assessment to be completed by a member of the agency.  (Even the internal assessment is often best completed by a neutral “outsider”.)  Using a neutral facilitator who is skilled in the processes of collaboration is key in both gathering the right information at this stage, and in helping the stakeholders begin to understand and buy into a collaborative approach.

IDENTIFYING EXTERNAL STAKEHOLDERS

One person probably cannot identify all the stakeholders who need to be considered at this step.  It is an iterative process to gather information about the various parties interested in the problem, and then to seek out the right representative(s) of those parties.  You will identify as many stakeholders as you can, then you will decide how many you can and must interview.  As you conduct interviews, you will likely get suggestions on others to consider.  Following is a worksheet to help you identify the potential stakeholders in your project.

Using the worksheet, identify as many potential stakeholders as you can who may need to be involved in your collaborative process.  You may not know names, but you can identify the potential interests or organizations.  Post your answers in the student blog assignments under 9-0. 

Post any comments, questions or insights as a reply below.

8.2 Tips to Uncover Interests

One of the tools for uncovering interests is open ended questions. Open ended questions are those that require a response other than “yes” or “no”.  They often start with “how”, “why”, “what” or “tell me more about….”  It is important to remember that the purpose of a question is to gain a greater understanding of what someone has said, NOT to challenge their facts or their perspective.

Asking a question to deepen your understanding will require that you assume an attitude of caring and of genuine curiosity. Balancing asking questions with active listening to feedback what you are hearing will help foster the safety and trust that is important if you are asking someone to reveal important and sometimes vulnerable information. We often refer to this as the “two step”: 1) ask an open ended question and then 2) give feedback (actively listen) to let them know what you heard them say and to check out your understanding of it. This will help keep the questions from feeling like an interrogation. The slide below outlines some questions that can help in exploring interests:

As a participant in a collaborative process, it can also be helpful for you to ask these same questions of your own position. Stating your needs, wants and motivations rather than stating positions will help further the agreement seeking process as well.

Review the facts of the Winhootchy role play — what are some of the positions of the parties? What might be some of their interests underlying those positions?  Post your responses below and discuss or comment.