Due Process and Expulsion

I recently received this plea from a West Coast friend about how to handle the possibility of a consensus group stripping a member of rights—one of the toughest choices a group can face.

On the topic of what is happening in my local Occupy group, I have a really important question.

In a document on committees that you shared with my community, you say that "involuntary removal of member rights," in the extreme case expulsion, should never happen in a committee. I need to be able to clearly articulate, by Thursday at 5 pm, why this is so important and true. Could you explain this?

For any group operating by consensus, I urge that the following four things be done in plenary, without exception (NB: I think it can be OK that a committee or subgroup drafts policy or makes recommendations to the plenary; the essential point I'm making is that decisions about the following matters should always be done in plenary, so that they're fully owned by the group):
 
A. Establishing explicitly what constitutes a member's rights and responsibilities.
 
B. Establishing explicitly what conditions or behaviors could lead to the involuntary loss of member rights (including expulsion).
 
C. Determining the process by which the claim that such conditions obtain or such behaviors have occurred will be examined. This step will include standards for explicitly notifying the member of their offending behavior and whether or not they'll be given an opportunity to correct it before sanctions are imposed.
 
D. Determining whether or not to invoke the group's right to strip or limit a member of his/her rights based on what comes out under C. (Note that it should have been spelled out in C that the person(s) in question will not be allowed to block in D.)
 
I think that groups must undertake all of these things in plenary because they are all foundational for the health and integrity of the group. Delegating to a committee the authority to expel or otherwise limit a member's rights seems to me an abdication of responsibility on the plenary's part, and will likely tear the group apart (independent of the question of whether someone's rights should be curtailed, there will be upset over the fact that such an action was taken without everyone's voice being heard). Everyone needs to own such an onerous step, and thus have a chance to speak to what they think is the right thing to do and why. If the whole group cannot agree to impose a sanction, then it shouldn't be taken.

(As an aside, I think it can be acceptable for committees, depending on the plenary's pleasure, to have the right to set their own rules about who is a member of that committee; I'm saying above that no committee should have the right to limit or strip a member of their rights with respect to the whole group.)

I expect part of what makes this hard is that there is probably an incomplete understanding of consensus in the Occupy group in question and it's probable that they are struggling to get clear about Steps B & C only as some believe it's appropriate to be doing D. Making up the rules while you are in the midst of applying them is a process nightmare, and generally comes across as a lynch mob. 



While it's not too hard to see the train wreck that this leads to, I also have considerable sympathy for groups that find themselves in this position. It's pretty hard to get motivated to spell out B & C until and unless there's a sense of need. Sadly, by the time you have a live need, you're dead in the water.

For a description of the kinds of persistent or urgent dynamics that can lead to asking someone to leave a group—the involuntary loss of all rights in the context of the group—see my posting of Feb 13, 2011: Knowing When It's Time to Ask Someone to Go.

News from the Front

Ma'ikwe and I had our first foray into the world of on-the-street Occupy dynamics over the weekend, as we were in Ann Arbor for the annual NASCO Institute. We sat in Liberty Plaza for three hours Saturday afternoon (fortunately on a sunny day in the 50s) talking with about eight people at a time. The composition of the audience gradually shifted as people shoehorned the opportunity into the other obligations of their day.

While I have no data on how Occupy Ann Arbor compares with the hundreds of other Occupy groups that have sprung up in inspiration of Occupy Wall Street, I thought I'd share my initial impressions of the group in Ann Arbor—which I suspect is reasonably typical.

o Foreign contigency
I was struck by the fact that the first three people we met were all foreign born: two Israelis and a French woman. Where were the Americans? For that matter, where where the Ann Arborites? They showed up eventually.

o Inspired by the process used in Occupy Wall Street
For the most part, Occupy Ann Arbor has simply adopted as whole cloth the process model being used in New York City. That means making decisions by consensus and having a core committee labeled Facilitation which has primary responsibility for running general assemblies (which are the plenaries). It was not our sense that the people we spoke with had any training in consensus or facilitation—they were just doing their best to emulate something that appeared to be working well in New York.

o Loose idea about common values
One of the foundations of consensus is that the group has a clear sense of its common values, or core principles. It is the group's alignment with and commitment to these values that sustains it through tough times. It is the reason that you labor with one another when there's persistent disagreement about tactics and strategies.

In a healthy consensus group, I believe that a majority of plenary time should be devoted to the question of how best to apply the group's common values to the issues at hand. If you are unsure of your common values, this work is much more difficult. Where can can you bridge to if you are unsure of the bedrock that is needed to support the abutments?

To be sure, Occupy Ann Arbor has some sense of these values—there is, for example, a clear commitment to nonviolence and in support of direct democracy—yet there is fuzziness around whether they're tackling racism and class oppression as well as economic inequity.

o Anyone can join at any time
In line with the group's core commitment to direct democracy, the door is always open for people to join. While this is the epitome of inclusivity, it is also highly chaotic. New people do not necessarily understand what the group is about (which task is considerably complicated by the group itself finding it hard to articulate), nor how the group operates. This is a recipe for fractioned and disruptive meetings.

You can see the problem. If you establish standards for what it means to be a member and insist on orientation to the group's process as a condition for having an active voice in the meetings, that could easily be construed as elitist—one of the main things Occupy groups are protesting against!

o No process orientation/training for new members
Uncertain about how to handle this dilemma, there is nothing in place to explain membership or to help people understand how the process works. In consequence, newbies are left to figure it out on their own, through observation, or to just bull their way in and see what happens. (Both are occurring and it's a bumpy ride.)

o Uncertain how to handle loose cannons
When people push their way in (a certain amount of which is inevitable when there is considerable media attention, no barrier to entree, and no orientation) there will be some predictable reaction to both the pushing and the substance of the pusher's agenda (unless it's concordant with what the group is already focusing on). It's damn hard to tell someone that there are inappropriate when you haven't established what appropriate is—either in terms of content or process. In consequence, folks who are willing (and/or habituated) to be loud and pushy get a lot of air time and it can lead to considerable frustration and demoralization.

o No sense of the need to have an understanding about working emotionally
When I asked the group if they had discussed how they would work emotionally, I got blank stares back. Uh oh. All groups that last for any length of time and are attempting serious work in the world are going to have moments when strong feelings are present in meetings. Not having an understanding about how to work with that is very expensive. Not only do people not hear well when they're upset, it's often highly distracting for others who are aware of the upset (and are perhaps afraid that the upset will escalate into destructive and aggressive behavior).

More than that, emotions convey information (differently than thinking does) and are also a source of energy. If left undiscussed, groups often handle emotions poorly, squandering a valuable, if volatile, resource.

If you're going to tackle this, it needs to be done before people are upset, not constructed in the moment of need.

o No sense of how to appropriately limit the scope of what the general assemblies tackle
This can be a problem in two respects. People can dissipate plenary energy by drifting into subjects beyond the scope of the group. This is often what can happen with the loose cannons referenced above, who want to use the occasion of the Occupy assembly as a soap box to discuss their pet issue or to promote their favorite strategy.

In the other direction, if groups are not clear about what aspects of issues need to be handled in meeting of the whole group, they will frequently work at a level of detail that should have been delegated to a committee—thereby inadvertently exhausting precious plenary time. Note that it won't be possible to avoid this trap until and unless you have established solid committees with clear mandates, so that you know when something can appropriately be handed over to them to complete.

o Push back on the Facilitation Committee drafting agendas and running the meetings
It's apparently the norm at Occupy Wall Street for Facilitation to draft the agendas for the general assemblies and to facilitate them. If someone has a problem with any aspect of the meetings, it's a lead pipe cinch that the arrows are going to be directed at Facilitation—they will be viewed as the latest version of Them.

To get out of this box, it's important that the group (not just the Facilitation Committee) establishes boundaries around what kinds of things are appropriate for general assemblies (see my January 25, 2008 blog on Gatekeeping Plenary Agendas for more on this), such that whatever body is trying to decide the best use of plenary time is relaying on group-approved guidelines in making their assessments.

o Issues come to general assemblies in the form of proposals
There is a widespread practice of asking that issues come to plenaries accompanied by a prospective solution. I don't like this for a couple reasons. First, the subgroup that drafts the proposal is going to have to guess what the whole group will think are the factors to take into account. If they get it wrong in any significant way, then much (if not all) of their effort devoted to generating a solution may have been wasted.

Second, if a proposal is introduced at the outset, that tends to skew the conversation, as people not privy to the development of the proposal are scrambling to catch up: they are hearing the problem and a potential solution all at the same time. Often this is tantamount to asking people to swallow food that has been incompletely chewed, leading to indigestion.

If a topic is worthy of whole group consideration, I think it's much smarter to first gather input from the entire group about what the solution needs to address, and then ask a subgroup to generate a proposal. Starting with proposals has too much the feel of backroom, done-deal politics—the very antithesis of the fresh air culture that Occupy stands for.

o Unclear about what authority facilitators have to run meetings
It's important that there be group buy-in with how the facilitators will run meetings. Just to name two common phenomena that can consume a terrific amount of plenary time unproductively if allowed to persist unchecked, it's important that the facilitator have license to interrupt people who are off topic or repeating themselves. If this is not clearly established or is handled unevenly, it can lead to a firestorm where the person being reined in may feel personally picked on. It can get ugly.

o Openness to getting help
While I've mentioned a number of things that leave room for improvement, I also want to recognize that Occupy Ann Arbor accepted Ma'ikwe's and my last-minute offer to help, and people showed up with a great deal of openness and lack of defensiveness. I was impressed. It's always exciting when people are more interested in learning than defending.

o Seeing the process as the most exciting part of the experience
One person who participated in Saturday's consensus workshop related that he'd spent time at Occupy Wall Street. As inspirational as that was, he lives near Ann Arbor and wants to be part of something more local than New York. For him, the aspect of the experience that has been most exhilarating is the attempt to have the protesters work together cooperatively. He gets it that the process holds promise way beyond economic reform, and is eager to see ways to incorporate that more fully in his life.

Now that's a revolution I can get behind. It'll be very interesting to observe how much this grand experimentation of Occupy with consensus translates into the energy and will needed to build a durable, more cooperative culture. This has the potential to change the nature of political discourse in our country. We'll see if it has the legs.

Occupy Opportunity

Ma'ikwe and I are traveling to Ann Arbor MI this weekend, to participate in the annual Institute hosted by the North American Students of Cooperation (NASCO). This will mark the 15th consecutive Institute that I've been part of the teaching faculty, and is one of the highlights on my event calendar. More than 300 students from across the US and Canada will convene at the Michigan Student Union (on the campus of the University of Michigan) for 48 hours of stimulation, education, and camaraderie. This collection represents the cream of student co-ops—those more excited about their first taste of group living than the chance for cheap housing—and gives me an opening to talk with the next generation of cooperators about the amazing possibilities in front of them after graduation.

Turn Back O Man
For many years I was partnered with my dear friend, Ann Shrader. She and I were two of the original four people at Sandhill Farm back in 1974, and we lived together there for 25 years, until she departed for Virginia in 1999. When Annie was a child, she and her siblings misheard (perhaps only partially with innocence) the opening line of the traditional Christian hymn:

Turn back, O man
Forswear thy foolish ways
Old now is earth
And none can count her days

(You may recall this hymn as it enjoyed a significant boost in popularity when featured in the Broadway hit musical Godspell in 1971.) Annie preferred to interpret the first line as "Turn back old man," which was, naturally enough, irresistible fodder for teasing for father, Bud—the nearest available old man, then in his 50s. This was so humorous (to teens, mind you) that "Bud" became transmogrified (as opposed to transubstantiated) to "Turn Back," and that moniker stuck to the point that it was one of the most common ways she referred to her father ever after. (With stories like this, you can begin to see why people think fate is fickle.)

I told you this story because I'm now that old man (more or less), and the NASCO Institute staff decided this year to make room for new voices among the faculty, and Ma'ikwe and I have been asked to offer only a single workshop: together we'll be giving an Overview of the North American Communities Movement, and how student co-ops fit into the picture. This is down precipitously from a high water mark where Ma'ikwe and I conducted a combined eight workshops, and for the first time ever I won't be offering a single process workshop. We've been turned back, at least temporarily.

However—continuing the theme of fate's fickleness—even as one door closes, another opens. Realizing that we'd have an uncommon amount of time on our hands this coming weekend (only one workshop), Ma'ikwe had the inspiration to see if there was an Occupy Ann Arbor (there was) and then asked them if they'd be interested in some process training (they were!). As our NASCO workshop isn't until Sunday morning, this nicely fills a void in our Saturday afternoon.

A Talk in the Park
Now, instead of sitting around drinking coffee at the Institute bookstore (where Community Bookshelf will be set up) waiting for students to drift in for chance conversations, Saturday afternoon we'll be in Liberty Plaza (a quarter-acre downtown park on the corner of Liberty and Division) talking about consensus and the delicacy of functioning cooperatively as a group unified in protest.

I'm glad for the chance to get up close and personal with the folks inspired to be on the streets following Occupy Wall Street, and it'll be fun to attempt to adapt consensus principles to the exigencies of in-the-street protesting (protecting the thoughtful and inclusive deliberation that is the bedrock of consensus while at the same time being able to handle the occasional need for prompt response in the face of rapidly changes circumstances, such as police intervention).

I have no idea what kind of turn out we'll get, and I'm also wondering about the weather. We're talking November in Michigan, meeting in an outdoor concrete plaza that will be in the shade by 3 pm. Hmm. Ma'ikwe's and my ideas (and rhetoric) had better be warm. Of course, no one promised that changing the culture was going to be a walk in the park. The closest we'll get on Saturday is a talk in the park, but at least we'll have an oar in the water.