Consensus

In this episode, we explore the challenges of reaching agreement on the action to take towards a change

Yeah, sure, some of it was time well-spent being usefully alone, but for the most part it was definitely a busy weekend. A dozen or so of us, from all across the country (or, in one case, from the other side of the world), and from all aspects of ‘the trade’, all coming together to work on a new direction for our professional discipline. Where have we come from?, we asked. Where are we now? Where do we want to go? And how do we get there?

A lot of different experience there; a lot of of differences in scope, focus, industry; a lot of difference in desire, meaning and intent for the future. A lot of differences in income, too, in some cases. Yet all coming together with one aim: to reach consensus on what we would do, together, to work towards a shared future for our shared world.

For what it’s worth, the field we’re working in is called enterprise-architecture, which is essence is about how organisations work with change: structure and story and all that, much of which is definitely relevant for what we’re exploring here in Small Changes. Yet in a sense, that point doesn’t matter, because the techniques we’d used there are much the same as for anything else, in every other type of context: set the stage, map out some ideas on whiteboards or flipcharts or, as here, on sticky-notes, and see what comes up.

The photo above is from the ‘Where do we want to be?’ session from the weekend. Again, the details of content in the picture don’t matter much: instead, it’s more about the process for reaching some form of agreement or commonality between our often very different perspectives. We’d been asked to write out some themes that we thought of as key concerns for the future of the field, and between the dozen of us we’d churned out something close to a hundred themes that we each respectively felt would be essential for that future development. Someone - I forget who - sorted the sticky-notes into clusters of themes that were either identical or closely-related. We then had a kind of voting-process where someone else handed out strips of three red sticky-dots, and we each then pored over those clustered themes and placed one of our red dots on a theme that we regarded as a ‘non-negotiable’ requirement that would need to be part of that future. The photo shows the result: every sticky-note or cluster amongst the overal set of themes that had received at least one vote - or sometimes quite a few more than at least one, as you’ll see above.

In short, the consensus of the group about what would need to be in the future of the field.

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In theory, anyway.

Sort-of.

At first glance.

Or only maybe, for me.

Because yeah, the reality was that I disagreed quite a lot with what was listed up there. To me, it fell way short - in some ways, a long way short - of what I believe is actually needed right now for the field, let alone for its future.

But the bald fact is that, yeah, even amongst close colleagues, I’m still way too much of an outlier. No-one voted for any of the suggestions that I’d put up on the wall. Heck, once I’d looked at what was up on the wall, even I hadn’t voted for any of the suggestions that I’d put up on the wall.

Because, yeah, it isn’t the right time yet for any of those suggestions that I’d put up on the wall. Sure, I still believe that what others had placed there falls a long way short of what’s actually needed - but they’re a lot more realistic than I am. We have to start from where we are right now - not from where I’d like us to be, which ain’t where we are right now…

Step by step. One step at a time. Big changes are needed, yes: but big changes come from small changes, one step at a time.

And that’s what this type of work is all about: consensus is finding the right small-changes that everyone involved can support.

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There’s one group of people who really know how to make this process work: the Quakers (or Religious Society of Friends, to give them their proper title). They’ve been at this game for a long time now: almost four hundred years so far, in fact. And for our purposes here, there’s one crucial concept that they bring to the story: that of loyal dissent.

I talked about ‘voting’ above: but as you’ll have seen back ther,e it’s not like voting in a conventional first-past-the-post election. There’s no majority-rule or anything like that: as in that example, it’s just a way of capturing and recording people’s preferences, priorities and intent. In the Quaker context, the only valid way to reach a shared decision is through consensus.

Yet consensus doesn’t mean that everyone must blindly agree and go along with the flow because that’s what some of the others demand we should do, along with some hidden threat of “you’d better agree, or else…” (Yeah, that kind of covert bullying and enforcement that so often occurs in workplaces and elsewhere. Oh well.) Instead, that’s where this concept of ‘loyal dissent’ comes into the picture: for example, at that session, the group’s decision was not the one I would have preferred (the ‘dissent’ part), but is still one that I feel, in my heart and my soul, that I can support (the ‘loyal’ part). And it’s up to me - my responsibility - to be clear in my heart and soul that I am comfortable with such loyal-dissent - because if I’m not comfortable with it, then it’s also my responsibility to continue the dissent, and make it clear to all that consensus has not yet been reached,

In that context above, though, I was comfortable enough with that shared-decision - that it was the right decision for now. Dissent, yes, yet loyal-dissent; consensus achieved; time to move on to the action that that shared decision implied.

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