Controlling the Story

I was raised as a Lutheran, and learned right away that there were competing ideas about right relationship to the divine. Not only were there a wide variety of religions (as well as those who rejected all religions—isn't it the ultimate act of hubris for humans to claim they comprehend "that which passeth all understanding"?), but there has evolved major disagreement among Christians, including a kaleidoscopic variety of Protestants sects, most of which are further fractured by doctrinal nuances. It's bewildering.

As an adult, I've become increasingly interested in the position that different religions take with respect to other religions, or different sects within the same religion. While many preach that theirs is the one true way and all others are apostate and worship false idols, there are also graduations of condemnation (where, for example, congregations of certain sects are considered confused or misguided, but not necessarily hopeless or infidels). Most refreshing of all, IMO, is finding religions that promote spiritual inquiry, but leave it up to the individual to figure out what best works for them, a la Unitarian Universalism. For those who embrace UU thinking, there are many true ways. Hmm.

Ten years ago I stumbled onto How It Is, the collected writing on Viola Cordova (1937-2002), a Native American philosopher and cosmologist. She was a Jicarilla Apache mixed with Hispanic blood, who grew up in northern New Mexico. She became a professor who studied and taught Western philosophy while articulating Native American philosophy. She did a lot to contrast White/Eurocentric and Native American cosmologies, and I found her writing illuminating.

Cordova explains that in Native American philosophy there is an emphasis on place, where beliefs about how the world began and what it means are specific to locale and are not expected to be the same elsewhere. There is just one Earth, of which we are all a part. There is no heaven; no parallel universes; no do-overs. The Earth is our home—as well the home of all other peoples and species. It is where we learn the meaning of harmony and coexistence. It is not inherently dangerous.

This made so much sense to me! Why accept the premise that there is one best answer? Why can't there be many?

How the Profound Informs the Mundane

Regardless of where one comes out on the matter of right relationship to the divine, it's not difficult to connect the dots between the point I explored above and how groups function (or fail to function), which is basically the focus on my life work. In mainstream US culture there is more or less a constant battle to control the story, labeling it a moral imperative: either believe my version or be subject to my derision and rejection as a moral degenerate. While that's an overly harsh characterization of the entire culture (there still exist moderate Republicans and Democrats who are left out in this analysis), there is ample evidence that it's a fair description of what dominates current political rhetoric, and the way that we engage with disagreement.

Sadly, people bring this combative, righteous style with them when attempting to create cooperative culture (whether in intentional community, co-ops, schools, churches, nonprofits, neighborhood associations, or whatever), resulting in all manner of mischief when unexamined.

All too often, when a group is wrestling with an issue and different perspectives emerge, those on each side will go through a process something like this:

• I, and those who agree with me, are thinking about what's best for the group; our viewpoint is tied to one or more recognized group values.

• If people disagree with me, they must be opposed to that group value. Their thinking must be rooted in selfish concerns—something other than group concerns.

• I have the high moral ground and need to defeat this opposing perspective, both for the sake of securing the best response to this issue, and for the good of the group going forward—we cannot give in to selfish concerns.

Thus, it becomes a holy war and there is a tendency to recapitulate (psychically, not physically) the same dynamics that have plagued humanity all along: the urge to vanquish the infidels in the name of the divine. We are fighting the good fight, and we are righteous. Once this mind set obtains, any movement from one side toward the other is often seen as compromise or selling out—something to be disdained.

In this toxic atmosphere, tempers flare, hearing degrades, and problems don't get solved. Yuck.

How Air Can Lead to Error

So how can we do this better? I'll give you my answer by way of an example. Let's suppose there's a suggestion on the table to install air conditioning in the common house. Side A is in favor of this, and Side B opposes it. Side A is grounding their position on quality of life of members, who have trouble functioning in the community's hot and humid climate during the summer months. In order to make full use of the common house—a major community asset—they favor this upgrade (something the community couldn't afford in initial construction). Side B is concerned about cost (both the initial outlay and the higher utility bills) as well as the environmental impact.

In summary, Side A is thinking about community values Q (quality of life of members) and F (making full use of common assets). Side B is thinking about community values A (affordability) and E (environmental impact).

If the conversation remains focused on installing air conditioning, it becomes a tug-of-war dynamic, with a winner and loser. In my experience these conversations tend to be exhausting and unsatisfying, yet follow naturally from our conditioning.

When facilitating the consideration, it is often helpful to ask everyone to step back for a moment from debating air conditioning—a particular solution—to examine the interests that inform the prospectives: Q, F, A, and E. Typically, it isn't difficult to establish that each side is thinking about what's best for the group—they're just emphasizing different values. More, Side A is pro-Q and Pro-F, but miscast as anti-A or anti-E. Similar, Side B is pro-A and pro-E, but not anti-Q or anti-F. Getting everyone to recognize this is deescalating.

This is important for two reasons:

a) It establishes that there is no high moral ground, and no one is being selfish. So let go of that (and the tendency to respond from righteousness).

b) There is no benefit in lamenting that the group isn't all of one mind at the outset. That's normal. The conversation that you want to have—the one that's constructive—is not about air conditioning. You want to discuss how best to balance values Q, F, A, and E, all of which are now known to be in play on the issue of the common house being too uncomfortable for some members to use in the summer months. The solution that emerges may involve air conditioning, or it may not.

There is much more wiggle room in that conversation than there is in a battle over air conditioning.

At root here is understanding that it doesn't benefit the group when people try to control the story. It works far better when you simply expect there to be different stories, and accept with grace the need to hear them all and to balance how the group's common interests intersect in this instance. That is the righteous work.

Out of One, Many

Working backwards from our national motto, e pluribus unum (out of many, one) I'm advocating for the problem solving potential of seeing that there are generally many pathways forward and it is enormously liberating and constructive to start with the assumption that different people will frequently see an issue in different ways and that that's a cooperative group's strength, rather than a consternation. To get there, the group needs to accept the basic premise that it is often a trap to presume there is one correct prospective and that that will be the survivor of rigorous debate.

Starting with a Proposal, Revisited

Jasen recently replied to my June 10 post Why Starting with a Proposal is Usually a Bad Idea, and he brought up points that I want to respond to, expanding on my original thinking. Jasen’s comments are in italics, and my replies follow in Roman text. (Note that when I refer to a “committee” I mean for that term to encompass anything from a single individual or manager, to a team, task force, or standing committee—any subgroup of the whole).

I personally find this challenging to hear (thank you), as I'm a proponent of crafting the proposal prior to bringing a topic for discussion to plenary. As you state, plenary time is precious so I definitely agree that some topics should be discussed openly in plenary well before a proposal is crafted by an individual or subcommittee. The challenge is determining what constitutes a good "proposal" agenda item vs. a good "discussion" agenda item. Because of the abundance of potential topics that could come to plenary, a certain amount of delegation must be done to subcommittees/individuals in order for plenary time to be effective. My instinct likely is to lean on the proposal all too often. Your post is a good reminder of this.

Re: skewing the conversation, I agree that this happens but personally believe this to be a net positive for the following reasons:

1. The proposal helps define or frame the "problem" or “issue." It gives members a lump of clay to mold.

Yes, but the danger is that you might not have all the clay you need if the plenary restricts its reply to what the committee has prepared ahead. Further, it can sometimes take more energy to change the shape of pre-molded clay than if you were starting from scratch.

2. The proposal preparation allows for research to be done prior to plenary such that knowledge/expertise can be gathered for distribution at plenary. If this is not done beforehand, the plenary is not an informed position to make the best decision.

While this is a real phenomenon, I believe it's better handled by having the need for research anticipated by a thoughtful Steering Committee, whose job it is to screen suggestions for plenary agenda topics. A competent Steering Committee will ask the sponsoring committee to conduct anticipated research as a precondition to getting time on the plenary agenda.

Further, they should insist that the presentation be tight, with a focused question. This kind of diligence should go a long toward eliminating wheel spinning at the front end of a consideration.

3. Finally, in many (most?) cases, the plenary faces a number of relatively trivial, non-fatal, and revocable decisions such that even if the proposal were skewed towards an action of some kind, that decision can be evaluated and changed at a later date based on objective desired outcomes.

I have two thoughts about this. First, why are you dealing with relatively trivial decisions in plenary? A better approach, in my view, is delegating those to committees such that if they are operating within their mandate they can make decisions without coming to the plenary at all. Many consensus groups fall into the trap of insisting that all decisions be made by plenary and that committees can only propose. While care needs to be taken to craft thoughtful mandates for committees, I urge you to consider pushing out decision-making authority to committees as much as you can stand. That way only major topics come to plenary, such as ones requiring an interpretation or balancing of values.

While committees should always be informing the whole group about what they’re doing and provide a clear opportunity for non-committee members to have input on matters that the committee has authority to act on, there is rarely justification for clogging up plenary agendas with routine matters.

Second, I agree that the plenary shouldn't let the perfect be the enemy of the good. If a proposal seems good enough after thoughtful engagement, it is generally better to accept it and move on, trusting that changes in the light of better information or more complete thinking shouldn't be that difficult to effect down the road.

If you are not facing a looming deadline (which generally you aren't), another option in those moments when: a) you've done what you can on the topic; b) you've lost momentum; and yet, c) it doesn't feel "ripe," is to lay it down for seasoning and pick up again at the next opportunity—to see if anything has shifted. The important thing is to stop giving something plenary attention once forward momentum has ceased—and then not falling into the bad habit of recapitulating all the prior work when you get back to it, which means good minutes and disciplined facilitation.

Finally, if there is anguish about whether or not you have chewed on a proposal sufficiently to swallow, and are concerned about the potential difficulty of getting agreement to change it later (the interesting case would be when some in the group really like the agreement and others are quite unhappy), is to keep in mind the option of a sunset clause. This allows you to make a decision that will expire after an agreed upon trial period unless the plenary takes explicit action to continue the decision. The point is that if there is not approval to continue the agreement, then it expires.

Often, real life experience will make clear which way to go regarding a policy about which the group is in anguish over is it contemplates consequences. The sunset clause takes pressure off the group when there's fear of locking into a policy with a potentially large impact and there's uncertainty about whether you've considered thoroughly enough all reasonably likely outcomes and their consequences.

Why Starting with a Proposal is Usually a Bad Idea

As a process consultant for cooperative groups one of the most common things I'm asked to address is why it's such a slog to solve problems in plenary. While there are number of things that may be in play, I want to focus here on one particular culprit that's a frequent contributor: expecting that topics come to plenary in the form of a proposal.

It's not too hard to figure out why groups think this is a good idea. Plenary time is precious and you want to make the best use of it. If someone has identified a problem worthy of group attention, it's likely to be more clearly defined and better thought through if the presenter is asked to come up with a suggested response. It's not so much that the group expects the proposal to sail through whole-group scrutiny without modification, as that the plenary will be able to dispose of items more expeditiously if the group can respond to a draft solution rather than build an answer from scratch. 

At least that's the theory. The reality is that it often doesn't work that way. Let's suppose that a committee is bringing an issue to plenary (it might be an individual, but I think the more interesting dynamic is when a subgroup does this). Here are the main pitfalls when a committee introduces an issue to plenary accompanied by a proposed solution:

1. Skewing the Conversation
If you start with a proposed answer, you will have a different conversation than if you start with a presentation of the issue. The developers of the proposal will tend to defend their work, and it will be predictably awkward surfacing factors that non-committee members feel ought to be taken into account.

Worse, some members may be intimidated by a proposal into not naming concerns that they feel the proposal doesn't address (or doesn't address well enough), because the train has already left the station and they don't want to irritate the committee members, or they may feel too much has been invested in the draft solution and they don't want to be labeled a saboteur. That means the group's best thinking is not being brought to bear. Yuck. Even though the group ostensibly supports a full airing of relevant views, starting with proposals unwittingly short circuits that goal.

2. Demoralizing Committees
If the presenter inadvertently misses some key factors (or weights them poorly) when crafting a solution, their work is susceptible to getting undressed in plenary, and that's demoralizing (and perhaps embarrassing).

This is actually a double whammy in that you not only have discouraged the people who have invested in creating the solution for that issue, but, if this is a pattern, it undercuts interest in serving on committees at all—because people will cynically expect to have their work redone (or trashed) once it gets to plenary, and therefore they'll be less inclined to make the attempt.

Note that it's no good blaming the members not on the committee because they will be surfacing their concerns or objections at the earliest opportunity that's been given to them.

While it may be true that the draft proposal helps the plenary identify the factors it wants to have addressed, is the time savings achieved (we;'re talking mere minutes here) worth the cost of discouraged committees? I don't think so. An enervated committee leads to mediocre work with the consequence that more work collapses on the plenary—the very thing you were hoping to avoid by asking for proposals up front!

[To be fair, sometimes committees get it right, and on those occasions having the proposal up front does save time, but it's a helluva a gamble.]

3. Cart Before the Horse
If you think about it, it's relatively silly to expect a few members of the group to either: a) anticipate accurately the sum of full group input about what needs to be taken into account when responding to an issue; or b) have no ego attachment to the work they put into developing a proposal. If the topic is appropriate to be handled at the plenary level, then why not start by hearing what the plenary thinks needs to be address (and the relative weight that should be given to the factors) before crafting solutions?

If the committee develops a proposal based on plenary-blessed factors, then they should be on solid footing when they come back to plenary and they're much more likely to have their work honored.

Are Proposals Up Front Always a Bad Idea?
No. If someone comes up with an idea for how to enhance their life (or the group's) that isn't driven by a group problem, I feel better about starting with a proposal. While there's still no guarantee that someone else in the group won't have an unexpected concern, this will be less likely in the case of initiatives, or at least less likely to be difficult to resolve.

Let me give you an example:

Case A: Community gardens are being devastated by wild rabbits, and the Garden Team comes to the community with a proposal to let dogs off leash at night to scare off rabbits invading gardens at night. (One member of the Garden Team has an uncle living on a farm and that's how they handle this problem, and it works with deer as well.) While this is a low-cost solution (hurray!), a number of members don't like it because: a) dogs tend to pack and engage in bad behavior when running loose together; b) loose dogs may be a safety issue for children after dark; c) dogs tend to bark more when loose outdoors and it will keep people up at night; and d) increased deposits of dog shit on the pedestrian pathways.

If the community had discussed this issue before the Garden Team drafted a proposal, they would never have suggested letting the dogs run loose. Now they have to start over.

Case B: Member Jones wants to raise rabbits for meat and comes to the plenary with a proposal to set up rabbit hutches in their backyard. In general, the community is OK with this plan so long as the community is notified when butchering is going to happen (so that the squeamish can avoid the Jones abattoir on those days) and that there's an understanding that the rabbits will have to go if they turn out to host any diseases that affect humans or other animals. Jones is OK with these conditions.

In addition, next door neighbor Smythe, is concerned that the rabbits may escape and devour her pride and joy lettuce patch, so she asks Jones to put a fence around his yard in addition to building the cages—just in case rabbits get loose. 

While Jones doesn't think a perimeter fence is necessary, Smythe is willing to pay for half the cost, and they agree to this solution.

In Case A it would have worked better if the Garden Team had simply brought the issue to the plenary and collected factors that need to be taken into account before drafting a solution. (They could have avoided going down the rabbit hole.) In Case B, starting with the proposal worked well, and no hares were split.