When You Don’t
Want to Use Full Consensus*
If full consensus turns out to be difficult to implement in your
group, here you have other options you can use, while keeping the
same spirit of inclusiveness and transparency.
Super-majority
voting |
As
in consensus, people try to build agreement for a proposal
and modify the proposal as needed, but they vote for or against
it. Depending on what the group has decided in advance, the
required majority can be anywhere from 55 to, say, 95 percent.
Typical numbers are 2/3 or 3/4 majority. |
Voting
fallback |
The group attempts
to come to consensus once, or twice, and if they don’t
reach consensus, they fall back to a percentage of voting the
group has previously decided on. |
Consensus
minus one |
In consensus-minus-one,
a proposal still passes even if someone blocks it. It takes
two to block the proposal for it not to pass. |
The sunset
clause |
In consensus,
once a decision is made, it requires a consensus of the whole
to change it. With a sunset clause, the group agrees on a proposal
for a certain period of time, at which time the decision is
automatically discontinued and the situation reverts to what
it was before. The decision can be continued only by a consensus
of the whole. |
This table is based on Diana L. Christian's book "Creating a
Life Together", (see Bibliography)
|
