Rebuttal to attacks against consensus as a decision making process.
In reaction to a flame about the dysfunctional nature of “consensus” based decision making processes by the editor of Politics in the Zeros, I posted the following comment:
Consensus is an essential aspect of the Green perspective on the political process, and crucial to the movement’s identity as an authentic alternative to the status quo. Abandoning consensus is, in essence, abandoning the Green vision of politics.
I’ve seen these arguments before, and bluntly, they are a load of hooey:
1. This is the cartoon version of consensus. Almost every Green organization that operates on consensus includes in their bylaws a “super-majority” voting provision that prevents a small minority from blocking action by a large majority of the group, and in most cases, the result of the consensus process is simply an effective absentition (standing aside) by the objecting parties. Consensus, like any other decision making process, is vulnerable to being manipulated or badly managed by someone who doesn’t know how to run a meeting. When done well, it actually brings out and resolves issues before they develop into larger problems, and facilitates involvement by folks who might otherwise remain silently unhappy.
2. I’ve been involved in a ton of grassroots and community-based organizations, and they all more or less operated on the basis of consensus (even if that wasn’t the formal process). No organization can survive when its members hold consistently and fundamentally different points of view on issues crucial to its core mission.
3. Similarly, it is utterly delusional to think that somehow the disruptive individuals cited would have been impaired one whit by a non-consensus based process. Every organization, no matter what process it uses (aside from dictatorial fiat), is vulnerable to these types of problems. Most organizations are reluctant to shut people up (rightly feeling that they should err in favor of speech, and not suppression of dissent), almost to and even beyond the point of dysfunction. It only takes two or three disruptive individuals (even as little as one), to paralyze and destroy almost any organization (whether it operates by consensus or not) - it doesn’t take too many arguments about what, if any, limits to put on dissent/speech, and associated conflicts over processe, to utterly demoralize and disenchant a majority of your active membership.
I also have to admit the I find it highly suspect that the complaints about the consensus process almost always center around “political correctness” run amuck. Why is this always the lead complaint? Perhaps there is a fire hidden in all that smoke? Some self-examination is warranted, I’d say. I wouldn’t say this if the exemplar’s were not invariably accusations of “sexism” and “racism”.
Consensus is a straw man, it is an easy target for blame, when the real issues and causes for dysfunctional organizational behavior and internal conflicts are far more messy and difficult to sort out and identify.
Don’t believe the hype.
Regards,
Thomas Leavitt
