Sue Diciple Group

Consent:  A Decision-making Ethic

 “Consent” is a decision-making ethic that borrows elements and values from both the Consensus and Voting models. Consent–based decision-making is an effective approach to collaborative efforts because it requires a group to consider the perspectives of all members, and to manage their individual disappointment in order to arrive at a supportable decision. Consent establishes a framework of shared principles and objectives for the decision outcome and an expectation that members propose well-reasoned alternatives that support those principles, without blocking the progress of the group with an unyielding position. A group working under a consent framework is responsible to actively listen to, consider, evaluate, and seek to address issues raised by any member, but may move forward based on the consent of a majority if good faith efforts to accommodate other perspectives have been exhausted.  However most groups that embrace consent-based decision-making find that they never resort to voting because they start from a basis of agreed-upon principles; value and seek to integrate diverse points of view; and because, when in the minority, members are motivated to be flexible and to propose viable solutions. 

The underlying assumptions of consent-based decision-making are that unanimity should be sought but not at the expense of timely and relevant decision-making, and that every member must manage some individual disappointment to achieve a robust and mutually supportable outcome. Phrases most commonly heard under the consent decision-making framework are “What alternative can you propose?” and “Can you live with this?”

The Problem with Consensus

Consent is different than consensus. The Consensus Model relies on an iterative decision-making process whereby the group stays at it until they arrive at outcomes that are acceptable to all. Under the Consensus Model one member can stop the progress of the whole group, and the iterative process continues until that member and all other members are satisfied with the outcome. The underlying assumption of the Consensus Model is that unanimity is essential and can be achieved. An unfortunate myth about consensus that often stymies groups working under this model is that all points of view can be accommodated, with no disappointments in the outcome. The phrase most commonly heard in such consensus-driven processes is “Is everybody okay with this?” And in our complex, diverse, and time-driven world, the answer to all but the simplest questions is likely to be “No!”

The Problem with Voting

 Consent is also different than Voting, in that it strives to avoid “winners versus losers” outcomes.  Consent is a useful alternative to voting, because voting is really not “fair” unless the decision-making body is truly representative and/or is operating under a framework defined by law or formal charter.  For groups that have more ad hoc membership voting can seem unfairly stacked in favor of the most heavily represented or powerful faction, and in such cases will not produce outcomes that all can support.  The underlying assumptions of the voting model are faith in the wisdom and will of the majority, and the value of expediency. Commonly heard phrases among groups using the voting model are “Do we have the votes?” and “Call the question!”  

The Essentials  of Consent

The purpose of consent-based decision-making is to:

—       Move the discussion away from “my position” and “your position” and focus the group on potential solutions and reasoned arguments as to why one approach or another better serves the principles and objectives of the task. 

—       Support momentum, and avoid stalemate situations where one person or a sub-group with a “position” can block movement.

—       Support innovation, and inclusion of a broad range of perspectives.

—       Provide a framework other than majority-decision-making, which, while “tried and true” is a non-starter for many groups working on difficult socio-political-economic problems.

—       Provide a framework other than “consensus”, which can set an impossible bar for an agreement, and doesn’t scale well beyond a group size of 6 - 8. 

Getting started toward Consent

The necessary precursors for consent-based decision-making are:

—       First, the group must begin by establishing the principles of a satisfactory outcome. 

This provides the “outer ring” for the deliberations, and establishes a shared target for the group.  (Of course in this example there would likely be other defining principles and definitions {e.g. “what is “economically viable”?} But this gives a general idea.)

—       Second, the group must have a decision tree.  A decision tree is a kind of “fill-in-the-blanks” framework or series of questions, that constitutes an inventory of the sub-decisions that will lead to the end result.  For some issues (like the dam relicensing example) these will be quite complex.  For other issues they will be very simple, consisting of a few key questions.   

—       Third, group members must agree to let go of their “position advocacy” and adopt the broader principles of the outcome as their “position”.  Group members may still be the “voice” for specific stakeholders or perspectives, but a requirement of group membership is that the principles of the successful outcome” are embraced. 

—       Fourth, each member must embrace the fact, at the outset, that they may have some real individual disappointment with some aspects of the outcome.  A “consent-based” process is not “consensus”. 

Operating from a Consent-Based framework

The following outlines the steps toward consent-based decision-making:

—       A consent-based process can be run like any good deliberative process.   Someone (a chair, co-chairs, steering committee, or facilitator) is in charge, and is entrusted by the group to establish agendas, schedule meetings, propose committees, run meetings, monitor discussion protocols agreed on by the group, keep notes, etc. 

—       The group ‘begins with the end in mind”, developing and agreeing on a suite of guiding principles that establish in general terms what the decision outcome will look like, and through which potential decisions are evaluated.  To participants who prefer to jump right into the details this may seem like a downside of a consent-based process, but it is a practice that enhances any decision-making discipline, whether consent, consensus, or voting.  Establishing guiding principles in advance narrows the decision-space and creates shared expectations about the outcome, and prevents time lost arguing about marginal positions that don’t have the potential to be embraced by the group.  

—       Once the principles are framed, those charged with establishing the agendas convene to create the decision tree.  This is done by answering the following query: “What is the series of questions which, when answered, will result in a decision on this issue?”  As noted earlier this may be a single question, while more complex issues may need many questions answered and sub-decisions made before a overall decision can be reached.  The decision-tree also provides a “discussion syllabus” that enables participants to anticipate what future agendas are likely to entail.  

—       Once the deliberations begin, an agenda item is announced, and proposals for addressing the item are considered.  (Note that in a group of any size greater than 12 and/or a decision of any real complexity, proposals are likely to come forward from staff or from a committee.)  Where people have concerns about or disagreements with proposals (in committee or within the whole group), it is incumbent on them to present a reasoned argument for taking another approach. The group listens carefully to understand the concern and the alternative proposal and, in good faith weighs and evaluates the argument in light of the guiding principles and attempts to address the concern.  If the argument is sound, the group may adopt the alternative approach or amend the original proposal to address the concern – or the members with the concern, upon exploration, may take their alternative off the table.  

It is at this stage that the differences and the similarities between consent, consensus and voting are highlighted.  A voting process may move forward toward a conclusion based on the positions of individual members, and whoever has the majority of votes prevails.  While the upside of this is expediency, the downside is the potential for a “winner take all” outcome, and the lost opportunity for an outcome that all participants could support, or at a minimum, not oppose.  A consensus process will not move forward until all are satisfied with and can accept the conclusion.  The upside is that eventually a decision must be arrived at that is agreed-to by all.  The downsides are that timeliness - a key factor in decision quality - may be sacrificed; a single “holdout” may block progress with an unyielding position; or the outcome may be too generic in the service of satisfying everyone’s priorities. 

It can happen under the consent framework that one or more group member does not feel their issue has been sufficiently addressed in spite of the group’s best efforts.  At this point, the meeting leader might poll the group, and may say something like “Joe and Bob, we have heard and understood your argument, but the group’s not there.  We must move on.”  Group membership requires the ability to accept disappointment in some aspects of the outcome, for the overall good of the group and the deliverable it has been tasked with.  If deliberations come to a point where a minority of the group cannot or will not propose an alternative that can be acceptable to the larger body of the group, then a majority-rules mechanism comes into play.   At this point the consent process has more in common with voting than with consensus.  However if the principles have been correctly framed at the outset, there should not be wholesale winners and losers. 

In practical reality, complex group decision-making processes are usually iterative.  Decisions that don’t have full “consent” are often adopted on a tentative basis and revisited when the final package is assembled.  Often the dissenter’s concerns are addressed someplace else in the overall package.  For this reason, it is difficult to nail consent-based decision-making down to a cut-and-dry process.  The consent framework is more fluid.  As one proponent of consent-based decision-making has stated, it is as much about “steering” as about “decision-making”. 

Fears about consent-based decision-making are due largely to over-focus on the exception (i.e. the individual whose concerns cannot be met).  When consent is really embraced by a group, three important dynamics come into play:

1.  Dissenters generally realize for themselves when their argument has not swayed the group, and move of their own accord to take their alternative off the table or agree to have their issue set aside to perhaps be addressed somewhere else in the overall conclusions package.   

2.  Group members recognize the legitimate role each individual plays on the group and seeks to understand and integrate their diverse perspectives. 

Rules of Order in the Consent-Based Process

Rules of order can be used to guide the discussion, but strict adherence to requirements such as “quorum” do not have the same necessity in the more fluid consent-based process as in voting.  There may be some minimum number of whole group or committee members below which it just doesn’t make sense to hold a meeting.  Under the consent-based framework a couple of mechanisms are sometimes used that address deliberations that happen in the absence of one or more members.   One is a “reopener”, by which any member can request an issue to be put back on the agenda for the next meeting if they were not present when the decision was made and wish to present a reasoned alternative.  The other mechanism, at least for complex decisions, is the reality that all decisions of the group are considered as a whole when the final package of recommendations is assembled.  The linear process that takes place over the timeframe a group meets to hammer out the component parts of a large-scale agreement often needs to be recalibrated at the end, as a whole. 

This article is from the Collaboration and Closure: Small Group Decision-Making (in Record Time) workshop.  Contact authors Sue Diciple and Tony Faast for additional information about the workshop and about  collaborative decision-making models at sue@suediciplegroup.com.