Consensus


Book Description

This quick-and-easy facilitator's guide to consensus decision making supposes no prior experience on the part of the reader and breaks the consensus process down logically in an easy-to-follow, step-by-step manner. A highly structured format allows the guide to serve not only as a how-to for the uninitiated, but also as a reference manual for those already familiar with the consensus process. While intended primarily for grassroots political and environmental groups, this handbook can be used in academia, in the corporate world, and by anyone who wants to cooperate with consensus.




The Consensus Building Handbook


Book Description

Whether you work in the corporate world, a nonprofit organization, or the government sector, you likely face the need to work with others to solve problems and make decisions on a daily basis. And you've undoubtedly been frustrated by how laborious and conflict-ridden such group efforts can be. At all levels--from neighborhood block associations to boards of directors of multinational corporations--the consensus building process is highly effective in an increasingly fragmented, contentious society. In addition, the old top-down methods such as Robert's Rules of Orders often prompt more problems then they solve. Consensus helps you to implement better, more creative solutions. It provides a winning alternative to top-down decision making--and even parliamentary procedure. By learning to build consensus, stakeholders come to understand and respect one another's perspectives. The consensus building process allows participants to find solutions and forge agreements that meet everyone's needs--and provides a meaningful basis for effective, long-range implementation of decisions. The Consensus Building Handbook provides a blueprint to help make the process work in your organization, including a practical, quick-reference Short Guide. Plus, you'll find in-depth commentary and seventeen case studies with in-depth commentaries to provide the theoretical basis for this approach. --From publisher's description.




Consensus-Oriented Decision-Making


Book Description

A step-by-step guide to the most efficient and effective method for participatory group decision-making Are you frustrated by that common challenge called group decision-making? Consensus-Oriented Decision-Making can help! Clearly written and well organized, keep this book by your side and refer to it often. Groups you are part of will function better as a result. -- Peggy Holman, author, Engaging Emergence: Turning Upheaval into Opportunity For any group or organization to function effectively, it must be able to make decisions well. Consensus-Oriented Decision-Making is the first book to offer groups (and group facilitators) a clear and efficient path to generating widespread agreement while fostering full participation and true collaboration. Poised to become the new standard for group facilitation, Consensus-Oriented Decision-Making combines: Deep insight into complex group dynamics Effective conflict resolution techniques Powerful communication skills Groups using this simple, step-by-step approach experience increased cohesion and commitment and stronger relationships as a result of their successful cooperation. Incorporating the principles of collaboration, inclusion, empathy, and open-mindedness, the consensus-oriented decision-making (CODM) process encourages shared ownership of group decisions. The method can be used in any group situation, regardless of whether the final decision-making power rests with a single person or team, a vote of members, or unanimity. Business, government, nonprofit, social, and community organizations can all benefit from Consensus-Oriented Decision-Making . Whether you are a designated facilitator or an active participant, understanding this powerful framework will help you contribute to the success of your group through achieving maximum participation and efficiency, a clearer decision-making process, better decisions, and improved group dynamics. Tim Hartnett, PhD, is a group facilitator and mediator who blends extensive knowledge of non-violent communication with insightful understanding of group dynamics and effective techniques for conflict resolution.




A Consensus Handbook


Book Description

"Excellent - clear guidance, thoughtful reflection on power and conflict" - THE GUARDIAN (UK) A practical guide to facilitating consensus decision making The essential manual for grassroots organising by Seeds for Change, one of the UK's leading activist training collectives This book explains the spirit and philosophy of co-operative decision making, and gives practical, easy to read guidance on how to facilitate a consensus process. A Consensus Handbook looks at common situations and explains the skills and tools your group can use to ease the path to a decision. Includes: · Skills and tools for facilitation and decision making · Small and large groups · Face to face or virtual meetings · Spirit and philosophy of consensus decision making · Troubleshoot your consensus process - a guide to dealing with common pitfalls and problems · Consensus in the wider world - how can consensus decision making be used outside small groups? Whether you’re new to consensus or are experienced; whether you think it’s the best way to make decisions or are struggling to make it work: this book is for you!




Building United Judgment


Book Description




Consensus Through Conversations


Book Description

Real organizational change isn't brought about by decree, pressure, permission, or even persuasion. Sustained change comes when people are passionately and personally committed to a future that they have helped to shape. If you want to turn your organization's cynics into owners, give them a voice in the decisions that impact their work. Consensus Through Conversation shows how. Consensus is a cooperative process in which all of a group's members develop and agree to actively support a decision. It's not mere acquiescence--consensus goes several steps beyond, transforming people from resigned instruction-followers to dedicated champions of an idea. Larry Dressler shows you exactly how to prepare for a successful consensus-building process, takes you step-by-step through that process, and offers tips for success and traps to avoid. Throughout, he provides a host of tools and examples that make this an eminently practical and immediately useful guide. Consensus Through Conversation will give you the tools you need to use consensus effectively in your organization. It is a handy, vital reference that you will turn to again and again in your efforts to tackle high stakes issues, make high quality decisions, and build enthusiasm and commitment to action.




On Consensus


Book Description

On Consensus: A Framework for Adaptive Action is a tool in the toolbox of anyone looking to improve decision-making processes in general and to build consensus in particular. The book provides not only a step-by-step approach to building consensus but it also provides a framework for thinking about how to think about consensus. All institutions are built and sustained through some sort of consensus. The degree to which the consensus that underwrites institutions is conscious determines the future viability of collective choices and actions. Democracy is in need of better tools and thinking on consensus. The book provides a leverage for those involved in high stakes decision-making, especially where there is a convergence of governance, development and stewardship. It explores what is required to arrive at a conscious consensus and to build a path towards more adaptive action. Decision-framing... a profound meeting of minds.




Consensus Organizing: A Community Development Workbook


Book Description

"The world is changing rapidly and the practice of community organizing needs to change with it. Representing both an homage to, and a departure from the "alinsky traditions" of organizing, Consensus Organizing offers techniques that are specifically designed for urban and rural communities struggling to succeed in the global economy and the information age. Ohmer and DeMasi are experienced organizers who offer a relentlessly thorough examination of the process of bringing diverse communities together to make change and to bridge the ethnic and economic divisions that keep many communities from succeeding." —Bill Traynor Executive Director, Lawrence CommunityWorks Inc. A person doesn′t have to be a consensus organizer to think like one. Consensus Organizing: A Community Development Workbook—A Comprehensive Guide to Designing, Implementing, and Evaluating Community Change Initiatives helps students and practitioners begin to think like consensus organizers and incorporate this way of strategic thinking into their lives and their work. Through a wide range of exercises, role-play activities, case scenarios, and discussion questions, this workbook presents the conceptual framework for consensus organizing and provides a practical and experiential approach to understanding and applying consensus organizing to address a range of issues. This workbook is designed to be used by itself or along with Mike Eichler′s text Consensus Organizing: Building Communities of Mutual Self Interest (SAGE, 2007). Key Features and Benefits Provides a step-by-step guide on how to conduct a community analysis of both internal and external neighborhood resources Brings consensus organizing to life through case studies based on the real-life experiences of the authors Offers field exercises that engage the reader in applying and practicing consensus organizing Provides practical tools that community organizers and practitioners can use in their daily work Includes a sample job description, work plan, monitoring report, and field report for hiring and supervising consensus organizers Presents tools for describing and evaluating consensus organizing and community-level interventions Accompanying Website Instructors and students have access to the many activities and cases on the accompanying website.




The Death of Consensus


Book Description

Over Britain’s first century of mass democracy, politics has lurched from crisis to crisis. How does this history of political agony illuminate our current age of upheaval? To find out, journalist Phil Tinline takes us back to two past eras when the ruling consensus broke down, and the future filled with ominous possibilities – until, finally, a new settlement was born. How did the Great Depression’s spectres of fascism, bombing and mass unemployment force politicians to think the unthinkable, and pave the way to post-war Britain? How was Thatcher’s road to victory made possible by a decade of nightmares: of hyperinflation, military coups and communist dictatorship? And why, since the Crash in 2008, have new political threats and divisions forced us to change course once again? Tinline brings to life those times, past and present, when the great compromise holding democracy together has come apart; when the political class has been forced to make a choice of nightmares. This lively, original account of panic and chaos reveals how apparent catastrophes can clear the path to a new era. The Death of Consensus will make you see British democracy differently.




The End of Consensus


Book Description

One of the nation's fastest growing metropolitan areas, Wake County, North Carolina, added more than a quarter million new residents during the first decade of this century, an increase of almost 45 percent. At the same time, partisanship increasingly dominated local politics, including school board races. Against this backdrop, Toby Parcel and Andrew Taylor consider the ways diversity and neighborhood schools have influenced school assignment policies in Wake County, particularly during 2000-2012, when these policies became controversial locally and a topic of national attention. The End of Consensus explores the extraordinary transformation of Wake County during this period, revealing inextricable links between population growth, political ideology, and controversial K–12 education policies. Drawing on media coverage, in-depth interviews with community leaders, and responses from focus groups, Parcel and Taylor's innovative work combines insights from these sources with findings from a survey of 1,700 county residents. Using a broad range of materials and methods, the authors have produced the definitive story of politics and change in public school assignments in Wake County while demonstrating the importance of these dynamics to cities across the country.