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Student Farm Planning 35
Consensus Building
Making Decisions as a Group
This
section:
Consensus Building p. 35 Resources for Consensus Building p. 35 Two tasks to take on early p. 36 Consensus Building Timetable p. 36 Consensus Building Handout p. 37 Small Group Consensus Building p. 39 Large Group Consensus Building p. 40 Amendments to the Process p. 42 Techniques in Practice p. 42 Two Tasks, Two Fates p. 43 Presentation Notes p. 44
Consensus Building
The Building a Sustainable Business Plan Guide in the introduction asks questions about motivation for creating a Business Plan, and attempts to get the reader to identify who the business planning team is, but doesn’t give any suggestions for making decisions. Going into the student farm planning class we knew that lots of decisions would need to be made, most of which we wanted the collective group to make. Student participation is and continues to be crucial to the success of the student farm. Finding a way to engage and include students in the decision making process was essential. We wanted more than just the opportunity for students to be able to vote. We wanted students to have a say. The consensus building model provided us with a method in which to make decisions and provided direction for situations in which we didn’t all agree on the same answer. A quick Google search provided adequate resources on consensus building. My goal for the fi rst week was to introduce students to the concept of consensus building, what it was, why we were going to use it, how it works in small groups and then the opportunity to apply what they learned right away by using consensus building techniques to solve a problem. (See handouts and resources for more information).
Resources for Consensus Building:
American Youth Foundation. (2004). Firestarter Youth Power Program’s Fist to Five Consensus Building retrieved in November 2004 from http://freechild.org/ Firestarter/Fist2Five.htm
Corcoran, Neal (2004). Consensus How to and Why retrieved November 2004 from http://www.msu.edu/~corcora5/org/consensus.html.
Kreger, Chris. (2004). Learning Cooperatively in Earth System Science Course Guide retrieved November 2004 from www2.cet.edu/ete/hilk4/guide/learn.html
Shepard, Mark. (2004). Coming to Consensus Tips for cooperation and collaboration in decision making, or how to run meetings so everyone wins. Retrieved November 2004 from http:www/markshep.com/nonviolence/Consensus.html
36 Consensus Building
Two Tasks
to take on early
The first week the two problems we attempted to tackle were creating a format for the master plan and how to communicate with people outside the classroom on what was happening with the student farm. We divided the class, advisors included into 3 groups of 5- people to brainstorm and create a plan for the task assigned. Two groups worked on the communication issue, and one worked on the master plan format. This assortment was chosen to demonstrate how different groups working on the same task can come up with different solutions. A lesson worth learning early is that consensus building takes time. I anticipated that students would be able to form groups, formulate a plan, present their plans and have the large group come to consensus in 45 minutes in the first time, in reality it took 45 minutes for students to form groups and start to formulate a plan. Two weeks later we re-formed the groups and had them quickly (allowed 25 minutes) put together proposals for their task. Then we went over the large group consensus building process, which basically involves having groups present their ideas, followed by a time for questions & answers, followed by discussion, followed by a Fist to Five vote.
Consensus Building
Time Table
Week of Class
Activities
minutes)
- Introduce the concepts of consensus building (See Consensus Building Handout)
- Introduce the method for Small Group Consensus Building (See Small Group Consensus Building Handout)
- Have participants break into groups and work on a problem or issue that need to be addressed within the context of the class, choose issues that are simple enough that students can use the small group consensus building model to create a proposal on how the issue can be addressed 2 • none 3 ( minutes)
- Have student get back into groups and finish preparing a proposal for their issue
- Overview of Large Group Consensus Building process (See Large Group Consensus Building Handout)
- Have students present their proposals to the class •Use Large Group Consensus Building Model to finalize a proposal (Can be used to combined several proposals into one final proposal)
On-Going • Use both the small group and large group consensus building techniques to create proposals and make decisions in and for the class.
38 Consensus Building
But’s What’s Wrong with a Majority Rule System? The majority rule system is set up to have a winner and a loser. This promotes conflict, and lends itself to steam rolling an idea over a minority that dissents with the majority opinion. People in a majority rule system don’t need to listen to the dissenting minority, or take their opinion seriously because they can simply outvote them. Majority rule systems say that the majority is infallible and they have nothing to learn from the minority. There is no moral system at work with a majority rule system, and there is nothing to say that the majority of people will come up with a morally acceptable system. (I mean, didn’t the majority of colonial Americans support the ``right’’ to hold slaves?).
But We Wouldn’t Be Able to Accomplish Anything! Well, this isn’t exactly true. Using consensus based decisions the Iroquois nation managed their lands and people very effectively. More recently, the Zapatista network in southern Mexico has been using consensus decision-making with everyone 16 and over participating. Any proposal by the Mexican Government has been endlessly discussed by each small village in the Zapatista network until everyone agrees. The decision to wage war, and then continue after the Mexican government made some initial concessions was done consensually with a 98.2% approval. Consensus has also been used at 300 person anti-nuclear protests, and during all sorts of activities. It is an all-inclusive form of decision-making that everyone can walk away from comfortable and satisfied with the outcome.
Be Honest, What Are the Bad Things About Consensus? Since it is a lengthier process to hash out ideas until all objections are resolved, your group meetings might be a bit longer and some proposals might regularly take more than a week to decide. Also, since some proposals may be just shot down without hope of compromise, consensus sometimes favors the status quo.
General Guidelines for Individuals using consensus building: Be responsible for your own learning. Share your knowledge freely. Learn what you can from others. Foster interdependence by asking for and giving help. Express your ideas openly. Listen carefully to feedback. Be a good critical friend. Share responsibility for the summaries of your team’s best thinking.
Student Farm Planning 39
Small Group Consensus Building
Handout:
http://www2.cet.edu/ete/hilk4/guide/learn.html
This technique is best used when small groups are given the charge of compiling ideas with the result being a plan or proposal to bring to the larger group.
- Start by brainstorming, everyone list several ideas with a reason - with no evaluative comments. Try to get everyone to contribute, get into the habit of requiring everyone on your team to participate.
- Evaluate the list of ideas. Have each person choose his or her first two choices and see if you have overlap. Reduce the list as much as you can - say to fi ve items. In this step it may also make sense to re-organize your list of ideas and create a list of main ideas with other ideas being components of the main ideas.
- Discuss - don’t vote! Ask each person to give a pro and con for each of the top fi ve items. Based on this analysis, have each person re-choose his or her top 2 choices. Look for overlap. Do pros and cons on the top two (by count). One of your top two may even be a hybrid or a modifi cation of one of the ideas, in many cases it won’t be a matter of deciding that one idea is the best but rather which ideas compliment each other and work well together to achieve the goal in mind.
- Decide – At this point hopefully a clear idea or ideas will have surfaced, if not you may have to go back to step 1, 2 or 3 and start again. If your group is divided between two distinct options it may be best to bring them both to the larger group for further discussion. The goal at this step is to have a solid well thought out idea / proposal to bring to the larger group.
- Remember to:
- Hear from everyone. All members must contribute, or you cannot agree on the criteria.
- Look for commonalties and differences. Use your observations as a litmus test on any differences. Look for what the differences teach you about the problem.
- Combine ideas to address differences by using the “either” / “or” approach.
Student Farm Planning 41
5. Does the Proposal Pass? If the feelings of the group are generally positive and there are no major objections, then the proposal passes. If general feelings are positive, but someone has a major objection to the proposal, the proposal doesn’t pass. It may get sent to a reconciliation committee, or withdrawn and reworked on and re-presented at a later date. If the group feelings are generally negative, the proposal doesn’t pass. If the group feelings are mixed, not generally positive or negative, discussion continues, or the proposal is tabled until the next meeting, or until more information is available. If discussion seems to be going on forever without the possibility of resolution, the group can:
- Decide to drop the proposal;
- Move onto approval voting of specific options within the proposal, or;
- Send the proposal back to the originating group or the original author - for rewriting to work out the objections.
Some Guidelines for Reaching Consensus
- Present your position as lucidly and logically as possible, but listen to other members’ reactions and consider them carefully before you press your point. Avoid arguing solely for your own ideas.
- Do not assume that someone must win and someone must lose when discussion reaches stalemate. Instead look for the next-most-acceptable alternative for all parties.
- Distinguish between major objections and discomfiture or amendments. A major objection is a fundamental disagreement with the core of the proposal.
- Do not change your mind simply to avoid conflict and to reach agreement and harmony. When agreement seems to come too quickly and easily, be suspicious, explore the reasons and be sure that everyone accepts the solution for basically similar or complementary reasons. Yield only to the positions that have objective and logically sound foundations.
- Avoid conflict-reducing techniques such as majority vote, averages, and bargaining. When a dissenting member finally agrees, don’t feel that s/he must be rewarded by having his or her own way on some later point.
- Differences of opinion are natural and expected. Seek them out and try to involve everyone in the decision process. Disagreements can help the group’s decision because with a wide range of information and opinions, there is a greater chance the group will hit on more adequate solutions.
- Decision making through consensus involves discussion and accountability of viewpoints as opposed to power struggles. Postponement of decisions to give time to reconsider and recognize that all people participating are able to accept and work with the decision is vital to the consensus process.
- Remember that the ideal present behind consensus is empowering versus overpowering, agreement versus majorities/minorities. The process of consensus is what you put into it as an individual and a part of the group.
- Finally, use your minds -- you’ve got good ones or you wouldn’t be here. So think before you speak; listen before you object. Through participating in the consensus process, one can gain insight into not only others but also ones self.
42 Consensus Building
Amendments to the
Large Group
Consensus Building
Model
Step 5: With major objections- small group consensus with stakeholders- recorder, group leader, with balanced # of objectors and group members. Without Major Objections- group leader will summarize and bring back written report for final approval into master plan.
Step 6. Repeat of steps 1-5 for written proposal.
Techniques in Practice
Do these techniques really work? We found that they actually worked quite well. Had we started out using a different method and then tried to switch to this later it might have been more difficult, but using these techniques from the very beginning made it easier to stick with. Keep in mind using them takes time. More time than you may have in class, in which case we often delegated small groups to work outside of class using the same techniques to work out details such as farm layout or a mission statement. Those proposals then came back to the class to be approved or revised. We found that having a facilitator to keep things moving was important. Once a presentation was complete, time needed to be given for questions and answers and then discussion. We found that the process often self-regulated itself, if we were moving to quickly a number of people would have major objections, which would halt the vote and move us back into further discussions that clarified the proposal. Often by the time we got to the fist to five step everyone was at least to the ‘I can live with it” stage and the proposal would pass. Early on one student wanted to propose a class definition for the term sustainable as is listed in the textbook glossary, the instructors collectively vetoed this idea not wanting to spend weeks debating a term that can encompass so many layers of definitions. Instead we laid out the vague definition of the intersection of environmental, social and economic realms over time.
Environmental
Social
Economic
Sustainable
A Definition for Sustainable
Time
44 Consensus Building
Group 2:
How do we communicate with outsiders?
EMAIL LIST (as is ~ 50 people)
- Regular Update on farms’ status
- Coordinator / Committee
- Message Board
- Invite to demonstration / other events
EXPANDING OUTSIDE GROUP:
- Daily Articles
- Posters
- Nothing?
- Wooden sign
- Inform freshmen (handout)
- Videography Project
- Photo Album in MISA office
Goals:
Education Business
Inviting Sign on Corner Advertising Sign Demonstrations
Presentation Notes:
Small Group Ideas for Communicating
with People Outside the Class
Group 1:
WEBSITE:
•Information Page
- Links Page *From U of M Pages *From MISA *?
WORD OF MOUTH
•Students
- Advisors
- Teachers (related fields)
3 PERSON MINI-PRESENTATION
TEAM
2-5 minute talks given to:
- Student Groups
- Relevant Classes
POSTERS
STUDENT GROUP FAIRS
•Booth / Table •Samples
Group 3: Ways to Communicate Who will be Targeted? Articles in the Daily General Public Sign / Gazebo at Garden General Public Flyers across campus Students who don’t know yet Info meetings on all campuses “New Students” Updates at WUSA Seminars Students already interested Contact different departments, class presentations New Students Listserv Students already interested
