Takes Green Decision – Avoiding to Teal Solutions
Group decisions by Systemic Consensing
Joachim Born
Joachim Born started in marketing as a trained chemist. He is environmentally active for over 45 years with water, waste and with Management Systems. He learned Systemic Consensing (SC) from the inventor of the method, Erich Visotschnig from Graz, Austria, and spreads it to support the participation of citizens in politics. He will present Takes Green Decision – Avoiding to Teal Solutions at IEC 2018 on Sunday, 27th, 11:30-13:30 in room Ibiza.
Since a vote of 51% versus 49%, or several options ranging from 24% to 14% can be interpreted as power over the minority, Systemic Consensing, SC offers an alternative.
SC makes sure that everybody is being heard and is invited in, and then measures the resistance against the suggested proposals.
Defining zero resistance as “I can go with this proposal although it is not necessarily my favorite” speeds up the decision. The implementation is reliable because nobody must carry disadvantages that he/she can not bear.
SC-benefits that appeal to Teal
Teal members of green communities suffer if they have to be non-judgemental all of the time, when ranking of options is mistaken as an hierarchy of power, or when decisions are avoided and the organisation is paralyzed.
SC demonstrates that avoiding a decision exerts power too. SC does so by showing the consequences if nothing is decided in good time: e.g. there is no shared lunch among colleagues if they have not agreed on what to have by 1:30 p.m.
SC invites everyone to participate and to speak up for his or her objections. Finally it requires everyone to show up and share his/her resistance on a scale from 0 to 10. At the same time the group aims for common ground and avoids lengthy discussions.
SC is used by Organisations like Attac, Gemeinwohlökonomie (Common Good Economy), Nonviolent Communication, Integrale Politik in Austria, Germany, or Switzerland.
SC-benefits which appeal to Green
By using the usual majority principle: ‘The needs of others are only important until I have won the majority”, minorities become marginalised. Because the availability of Pro-Votes is limited, they become a scarce resource, thus leading to competition and fight, which can generate or flair up conflicts.
SC, however, is an instrument for making decisions without it being an instrument of power and functions as a conflict resolution tool through cooperation.
In order to have successful proposals it is better to offer solutions which are not only in ones own best interest, but at the same time minimise the rejection by the other participants. The structure of SC convinces even egoistic persons to:
• Investigate and try to understand the needs of the others
• Respect and integrate the needs of the others as much as possible
• Show courtesy and cooperation
SC-benefits which appeal to Orange
As soon as you look at the whole process of decision-making plus its implementation, SC is faster than the usual majority principle, because sustainable and implemented decisions are based on little resistance of the whole group. The quality of the decision is increased as favours and power struggles are avoided and the group`s energy is used for constructive politics. Exactness in measuring resistance is achieved using a scale from 0 to 10.
SC can be done with hundreds of participants – even online.
Fast and simplified consensing is evaluated by raising hands. It becomes more exact, the more people are involved.
SC is easy to understand, as consensing with children shows: use a scale with 5 symbols – Sun and thunderstorm at the ends and clouds with sun and rain in between.
In every moment our behaviours have a huge impact in the world. They impact everything we do; the way we live, love, work, parent and lead. We know perfectly well that some of our behaviours enrich our lives and expand our happiness whilst others drain our energy and damage our relationships.
SC-benefits that appeal to Blue
In hierarchies the Cooperative Preparation of Decisions uses the creativity and experience of e.g. employees. They receive a description of the problem and all the information needed. They are invited to develop different solutions and to evaluate them. The manager takes the role of the mediator/ facilitator. Resulting information for the manager:
• The ranking of the proposals
• the group-resistance towards the different proposals
• the limit of reasonability for a change (= Resistance to no change at all)
Insights:
• Awareness for the problematics of majority voting
• Structure and frame conditions have more influence on the behavior of people than genes, origin, character,predisposition, family background, etc.
• While Orange consulting focuses on the facilitation of implementation, teal SC avoids the obstacles against implementation.
• It is unfeasible to have a world without any responsibility and without a clear democratic accountability
• How to have private choices and to deal with collective values at the same time
• How to have a permanent dialogue and reciprocal and mutual trust
What learning activities are planned?
1. Warm up game: >musical chair < with the goal to place as many people on one chair as possible. (as opposed to the classical >musical chair < with only one winner and all others being losers)
2. The participants decide on what to learn during the workshop by using the decision-making-method to be learned.
3. The decision-making-method is explained in detail using practical exercises.
4. Role play with a tricky group decision
About Joachim
Joachim started in marketing as a trained chemist. He is environmentally active for over 45 years with water, waste and with Management Systems. In his 3rd third of life he is experiencing the inner world of „I and We“ with meditation and Nonviolent Communication and supports local experts in peace initiatives. Joachim learned Systemic Consensing from the inventor of the method, Erich Visotschnig from Graz, Austria, and spreads it to support the participation of citizens in politics. After retiring Joachim now applies Nonviolent Communication in charity peace projects, practices Integral Zen and supports Pulse of Europe. He is married and has two grown up children.
With Love,
The IEC team
https://www.integraleuropeanconference.com
