Curating Content To Support Learning About Humanity's Transition

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This content was posted on  12 Jul 21  by   The Hum  on  Facebook Page
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Are you struggling with Consensus decision making? Try Consent instead.

In a Consent decision, you’re not asking everyone “is this the best thing we can do?” instead the question is: “is this likely to do harm?”.

With Consent:
✔️ any one can block a proposal if they have a principled objection
✔️ the priority is to move quickly and safely, rather than to build shared agreement
✔️ we are looking for a proposal that is “good enough for now, and safe enough to try”.

How does Consent work?

1) Start with a proposal.
Usually consent starts with a proposal. Start saying “I think we should do X”. It’s important to give a concrete idea, your point of view, something to start with. Something is better than nothing 🙂

2) Bring clarity.
We check for clarifying questions: does everyone understand what is being proposed? Sometimes the communication fails: maybe we don’t understand clearly or we don’t imagine things in the same way others do. Clarify the communication can be a good starting point.

3) How do others react?
We hear everyone’s reactions. If there are objections, the proposal will be iterated until they’re all resolved. Pay attention on how you object. A valid objection is like “I think there is a serious risk this proposal could do harm”, not “I have a better idea” or “I don’t like it”.

4) Green light
We can proceed in the absence of valid objections!

Remember “good enough for now, safe enough to try” 😎

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