Building consensus or building consent requires listening carefully to each other.
Keep this in mind:
- Ensure that the various interests and perspectives are represented. Otherwise, problems will arise later: aspects will be overlooked, which can foster distrust.
- Let people see each other as individuals, and everyone will listen better. It’s important that people develop trust in each other. So try to separate opinions from individuals. The chairperson can do this by regularly summarizing the different opinions.
- Ensure expectations are not excessive; no one is in charge; it’s a quest to find the wisdom in each other’s contributions.
- Work solution-oriented. Sometimes people get stuck on identifying the problem and the negative consequences of a decision. Ensure the group works together to find solutions. This can be done by specifically asking what is possible or what an alternative is.
- Hold people to agreements.
Be mindful of a few rules:
- • Regarding interests: focus on interests, not positions; So not “you thought this,” but “what’s in your best interest?”
- • Regarding choices: create all sorts of possibilities before making a decision;
- • Regarding criteria: insist that the result is based on an objective standard. Otherwise, you’ll have problems later when you need to justify yourself.
A special form of seeking consensus is the consent method. Consent-based decision-making is a structured approach where decisions move forward unless people have objections. This method emphasizes addressing and integrating objections to ensure decisions are “good enough for now” and “safe enough to try.”. It is a method that forces to listen to objections and find their wisdom. (see here) (or a video)
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