[governance] Social dynamics of consensus processes (was Re: Rousseff & Chehade: Brazil will host...)

[Norbert Bollow]

JFC Morfin <jefsey at jefsey.com> wrote:

> Dear Norbert,
> 
> I am afraid that repeating your position and stating that you will
> repeat it again for the last time is not a consensus but rather
> influence :-).

Actually it was Anja and not I who used that particular rhetoric step.

But it is true that I have attempted to influence the IGC by explaining
why in my opinion a certain kind of action should have been taken.

I have tried to keep that kind of argumentation (which did not involve
me wearing the “coordinator hat”) clearly separated from my role in
running the consensus process (for which I was careful to explicitly
state at what points I considered myself to be wearing the
“coordinatinator hat”).

> Also, stating that your opponents have to put their
> political situation at risk if they wish to oppose you, while you
> don't risk yours, sounds like an abuse of a dominant position !!!
> Ouhaou! This does not sound like you.
> 
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consensus : Consensus decision-making is
> a group decision making process that seeks the consent of all
> participants.

If that process of seeking the consent of all participants is to be a
structured process in any way, it necessarily must involve a structured
way of objecting, or choosing not to make use of the opportunity to
object.

I don't know how much experience you have in participating in various
variants of consensus processes of various organizations that practice
consensus based decision-making.

In my experience, except sometimes for very simple decisions, I'm never
happy about all aspects of a proposed decision. When a text is being
drafted, a consensus process cannot work if everyone wants to insist
that every aspect of the text must be perfect from their perspective.
Even if in a large group just two people with differing perspectives
insist that the every aspect of the text must be perfect from their
perspective, that must necessarily result in the consensus process
breaking down. There is in many groups however an informal social
dynamic which prevents that fact from preventing all consensus decision
making. This social dynamic is based on the social effects (in
particular credibility effects) of effectively stopping a consensus
process. These effects depend on whether the justification for stopping
the consensus process is perceived as valid by one's peers in the group.

In a well-functioning group, no one has a dominant position in this
kind of peer-to-peer group dynamics.

In view of the obvious fact that there is no shortage of people who
publicly disagree with at least some of my views, I think that it is
pretty clear that I certainly don't have a dominant position in this
sense.

If on the other hand, the term “dominant position” may have been meant
simply as a reference to running a consensus process: Well unless
consensus emerges spontaneously (which can sometimes happen), there is
no way to determine whether consensus can be reached short of making
a serious attempt to reach consensus by means of a somehow structured
process. Doing so does not give anyone a “dominant position” because, by
the very nature of consensus processes, everyone has the power to stop
the process by means of a timely objection.

Of course it happens in every group which practices consensus decision 
making that some people don't understand what is going on, don't follow
instructions (which may be caused by the instructions not being clear
enough, but it can also be caused by people not having read the
instructions in the first place), etc, etc.

In particular newcomers need to be taught that they can't legitimately
object to the outcome of a consensus process if they're not willing to
risk their credibility on objecting in the way that matters, which is by
voicing an explicit objection of the kind that can potentially cause the
consensus process to end with the result of “no consensus”. Of course
(and maybe it would have prevented you from misunderstanding me if I had
said so explicitly), in making such an objection, the person who
takes this step does not only risk to lose credibility (in the eyes of
those who consider the step to be unreasonable), but he or she can also
gain credibility (in the eyes of those who consider the step of
objecting to be well-justified, for example because compelling
arguments are given).

Greetings,
Norbert

P.S. The IGC Charter foresees that under certain conditions IGC can make
decisions on the basis of rough consensus instead of by consensus.
The social dynamics of rough consensus processes are different from the
social dynamics of consensus processes; the above specifically refers
to consensus processes, not to rough consensus processes, although
there are of course similarities. I'd like to remark though that in my
view, if the IGC Charter's rules on the decision-making process are
properly interpreted, the rule about rough consensus decision making is
not going to be used except in situations where the rough consensus is
very obvious, such as e.g. if very clearly almost everyone wants a
decision and just one person is “being difficult” in a way that from
almost everyone's perspective is clearly unreasonable. One good
point about the process described in the IGC Charter is that there is a
48 hours rule specifically for the rough consensus decision process
which ensures that rough consensus will not be declared hastily.

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