Consensus as an Unnatural Act

As a process consultant, I get frequent opportunities to share what I consider the essence of consensus—the most popular choice for decision-making in cooperative groups.

While there's a lot to say, I've come to believe that there are three most important introductory points to get across:

a) Groups will not get good results unless they're prepared to create a different culture—one that's oriented toward curiosity rather than combat in the presence of non-trivial differences. Given the way most of us have been conditioned, being curious in the face of someone disagreeing with you is an unnatural act. We are taught to defend, not to break bread with the enemy. Yet combat discourages open disclosure and sharply limits the flow of information. Job #1 is keeping the ideas moving freely.

b) Consensus is the nuanced intersection between relationship and decision-making—if you're not attending to both, you'll not be happy with the results. In the wider culture we're mostly taught to set relationships aside in the pursuit of sound decisions; in cooperative culture however, we value how we reach decisions about as much as what decisions we reach. If you neglect relationships you risk birthing agreements with stillborn energy. If, on the other hand, you attend to relationship and lose focus on problem solving, you may drift into an emotion-laden quagmire with no clear exit. Both forms of imbalance tend to be unsatisfactory.

c) Meetings call for different behavior than informal settings, and participants need to learn both what's appropriate and the discipline to modify their behavior accordingly. I teach groups that the mantra of participants in a consensus meeting is:
What does the group need to hear from me on this topic at this time?

This guidance is so nutrient-dense that I want to parse it into five components:

1. The Group
The context is a group conversation. That means screening possible comments for those that are group-relevant, and having the internal fortitude to discard the rest for another context. The point is that everything that is of sufficient interest—or even potency—for the individual may not be pertinent in the group context. To succeed in this, the participant needs to be clear about the group's purpose and what things are appropriate for plenary consideration.

2. Need
This is an assessment of relative importance. Rather than looking for "What can I think of saying about this topic," participants should be looking for "What is sufficiently germane and potent that the group needs to take it into account." If someone else has already offered the thing you were poised to contribute, you may not need to speak.

To be sure, there's considerable nuance around what the group needs to hear. If you're undecided, it's likely better to speak up and let others help you sort the essential from the elective.

3. From Me
If you say nothing, people may be left to guess how to interpret your silence. It could mean that you have nothing to add, or it could mean:
—You're confused about what the topic is.
—You're distracted by a personal challenge that has nothing to do with the topic.
—You're bored and have been spacing out.
—You're so upset that you're afraid to speak because you might vomit on someone and create a big mess that there's not time to clean up.
—You're still formulating a response and just aren't ready to speak.

Because silence can be so confusing, it's typically better to offer something like, "So-and-so speaks my mind," than to stay mum because you don't think you have anything new to add. Not only does this only take a few seconds, people will not be left to guess where you stand. Choosing to let everyone know that you're fine with what's been said is even more important if you're identified as a key stakeholder, as people will likely be tracking your silence even more closely.

Note: this is all together different than making the same point as someone who spoke before, and then taking just as long or longer to do it, in an effort to find fresh phrases for the same concept. Remember, the point of the meeting is not how good you look; it's how good the group's thinking is.

4. On The Topic
It's not uncommon for a person's brilliancy to be triggered by the topic at hand, yet not be about the topic at hand. If that's the case, can you restrain yourself from insisting on sharing your inspiration? Whenever you indulge that impulse and stray off topic you're not being a good consensus participant.

To be fair, it isn't always easy to tell what the topic is, and therefore you may be unsure whether a proposed comment is in bounds or coloring outside the lines. That's where a good facilitator comes in.

5. At This Time
There's a predictable journey that topics take when traveling through plenary consideration, and different kinds of comments are appropriate at different stages. For example, during the discussion phase you're not looking for potential solutions (you're looking for the factors that a good proposal needs to balance); during the question phase you're not wanting any statements about blocking concerns (at this early stage you're only wanting to make sure that everyone understands the issue, not what positions they'll lay down in front of the bulldozer over).

In my experience it takes your average cooperative group years before these essential consensus elements become so ingrained that the responses surface naturally. The good news is that it's possible.

• • •

Post-Thanksgiving Postscript

For those who read my blog of Nov 16, Granddaughter Down, I'm happy to report that Taivyn is now home and completely free of the C Diff infection that knocked her down. While she still has a ways to go on the road to normalcy (she needs a bland diet and plenty of rest for several weeks), she is expected to make a full recovery and her parents had ample reason for giving thanks yesterday. I also want to express appreciation to all my readers for the outpouring of loving support that my posting generated. I was touched, and I like to think that all that healing energy helped her turn the corner just that much faster.

Granddaughter Down

A week ago Monday I got an email I never wanted to receive: Annie informed me that our granddaughter, Taivyn, was in intensive care battling a raging bacterial infection. The bottom fell out of my stomach. She's only three and a half.

Her small body was invaded by Clostridium difficile (colloquially known as C diff), which attacked her opportunistically following a pediatrician-prescribed course of antibiotics to knock out a respiratory problem. It is now nine days and counting since she was admitted to the hospital's intensive care unit, with no clear end in sight. Now she taking even stronger antibiotics to battle the C diff. This appears to be a clear instance of the cure being far worse than the disease.

As often happens with colitis (inflammation of the colon) she suffers additionally from diarrhea (hourly), stomach cramps, and rectal prolapse. There's nothing fun about it. While there's no immediate threat to life (thank God), it's totally exhausting for Taivyn and nerve wracking for both parents—my son and daughter-in-law, Ceilee and Tosca.

In order to starve out the bad guys, Taivyn is not taking any food orally. Instead, she's receiving both medication and nutrition through a PICC line (peripherally inserted central catheter). Ceilee & Tosca are at the hospital almost continuously, sleeping there every night, and leaving only long enough to shower, eat, change clothes, and visit their four-month-old son, Connor, who's safely at home isolated from his older sister's infection. Their #1 job is to be there for their suffering daughter as she rides the waves of nausea on her frustratingly slow boat to recovery.

For all of this misery though, it occurs to me that Ceilee & Tosca are actually lucky. While I know that's not what anyone is feeling right now, let me count the ways:

a) Foremost, Taivyn's life does not appear to be at risk and there are excellent long-term prospects for a complete recovery with no lasting effects. While the infection is debilitating and requires serious attention (how could 9+ days in ICU be anything else?) the prognosis is not dire.

b) Right away, Tosca's immediate family (mother, sister, and grandparents) traveled out from Missouri to rally around her in time of need. It's a terrific boon that they're able to suspend their regularly scheduled lives to take primary responsibility for care of Connor. Plus, it means that the dog (Zeus) will get walked & fed, food won't spoil in the fridge, the mail will get opened, etc. That's a considerable relief.

c) Ceilee & Tosca run their own business (they operate seven Cricket cell phone stores in Las Vegas). With managers in place to handle day-to-day affairs they have the freedom to take all the time off they need on short notice. Few have such flexibility. What's more, they have robust health insurance and the staggering hospital bills will be taken care of. Whew.

Antibiotic Merry-Go-Round
Apparently most of us have C diff bacteria in our gut. Ordinarily, this is something we can ignore, as the normal complement of intestinal flora are robust enough to keep C diff in check. Those natural defenses were breached however when Taivyn took antibiotics for her respiratory infection. That left the gate unguarded and the C diff marauders walked right through, producing the bacterial bloom that's been causing so much mischief.

While Taivyn's intestinal skirmish is highly likely to have an innocuous ending (my fingers and toes are both crossed as I type this), it's hard to not reflect on how this intersects with a disturbing trend among bacteria of all stripes to develop strains that are resistant to antibiotic treatment. The more bacteria see antibiotics, the more chances they have to develop evolutionary strategies to circumvent their effectiveness.

While I don't know any details about how bad the original respiratory illness was, I wonder about Taivyn's risks down the line, now that her body has been flooded with large doses of multiple antibiotics. How much are the bacteria in her young body being given the data they need to develop resistant strains for future battles—perhaps battles where her mortality is more in question? It's scary.

Seeing the Diff—the Roads Not Taken
When a loved one gets sick it immediately grabs your attention, and offers a reality check about what matters. It provided me some perspective on how much of my day-to-day focus is devoted to emotional minutia (For example, I spent a couple hours over the weekend agonizing about how best to approach a person who's feelings I may have hurt with an abrupt piece of feedback delivered Saturday afternoon).

On the one hand, it's unlucky that Taivyn was stricken with diarrhea and a bacterial infection. On the other, it's lucky that it was diagnosed promptly and treated seriously. It's enormously beneficial that Taivyn has loving and attentive parents who can afford high quality health care. On the other hand, perhaps the original application of antibiotics was precipitous (we may never know) and there may be a price to pay later in terms of decreased effectiveness of antibiotics. These things can be hard to weigh, and point out how often we must make decisions—sometimes decisions with large consequences—with only partial information. Sobering.

Grandmother Up
I spoke with Annie by phone last night. She was home in Virginia and I was in Missouri. Ceilee had just asked her to join the troops in Las Vegas, and she was calling to let me know that she was accepting the draft and moving up her planned Dec visit to deploy for Nevada in the next 24 hours, to further bolster the number of family boots available at Ground Zero to battle the infection.

While I won't get out there until the second week of Dec, Annie will still be there then and I'm fervently hoping that it will be a heartfelt, joyous time, with everyone able to celebrate the good health we too often take for granted.

The Wisdom of Babies and Dogs

This past week I've been spending a lot of time hanging out with both my seven-month-old granddaughter, Taivyn, and my three-year-old granddog, Zeus—often at the same time. Both are happy to have my undivided attention, and sometimes they even get it.

As someone who's lived in community for 34 years and has been working with groups professionally for 21, I'm often wading through the jungle of convoluted interpersonal dynamics, looking for clear paths. It's refreshing to be reminded by Taivyn that life doesn't have to be so complicated. She can be crying her heart out one minute, asleep the next, and then all-forgiving when she wakes up, unencumbered by any grudges about how I wouldn't let her poke her inquisitive fingers into the electric outlets right before her nap.

Adults are rarely that straight forward with one another—either in terms of being emotionally artless (with babies, what you see is what you get) or willing to start each new interaction with a ready smile and a clean slate. Unfortunately, we adults tend to keep score. Worse, we rarely use the same point system or even announce the standings. It's messy.

For his part, Zeus is the embodiment of unconditional love. Just like Taivyn, he's happy to interact with me whenever we make eye contact. Unlike Taivyn, he never pitches a fit. He just wants to lick my face, get his belly and ears rubbed, and go for a walk—in about that order. If he gets turned down, he either tries someone else or just lies down, slows his heart beat, and waits for the next chance. When you run into people like that, you tend to question whether they're hitting on all cylinders ("Why are they so happy all the time?). Canines set such a high bar when it comes to loyalty and affection that you can understand why some prefer dogs over partners as housemates.

Tomorrow at first light I'm off to a weekend job with a troubled group. While my main motivation for this visit was to be with my son and his family for six days, I realize at the cusp of my departure that I got a bonus. In addition to nurturing family relationships, I also received an unexpected balm after basking for hours and hours in the unalloyed affection and availability of a baby and a dog. I experienced it as a massage for my psyche. Though I didn't know it when I planned the trip, I needed it.

Taivyn & Zeus, this jaded warrior thanks you for your therapuetic ministrations and loving innocence.