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Abstract
This study focused on a cohousing community's use of consensus to make a decision about surfacing a parking area. It revealed that the community's use of consensus decision making allowed the residents to balance three goals: making an appropriate decision, meeting members’ needs, and maintaining the community's well-being. Reaching agreement, however, was complicated by members’ value differences and discontinuity in their participation. The analysis of this case reveals three qualities characteristic of the enactment of consensus: the role of structured communication within and between group meetings, a tension between maintaining process openness and reaching decision closure, and the expectation that group members will work within the consensus process. The analysis also highlights the importance of timing in the interpretation of conflict in a consensus-oriented group and the role of process change when a group reaches the limits of members’ commitment to consensus.
The data for this research were gathered while the author was on sabbatical; the research was partially supported through a sabbatical grant. The author is grateful to George Ziegelmueller; David Macleod; the editors and reviewers for the Journal of Applied Communication Research; her colleagues; and, especially, the residents of “Birch Haven Cohousing” for their support, suggestions, and assistance in the preparation of this manuscript.
Notes
1. The term consensus is used inconsistently throughout group research (Renz, Citation2005). Even Wood's definition implies two distinct uses of the term: consensus as process and as product, thus accurately suggesting that consensus illustrates well the “duality of structure” identified by structuration theory (Poole et al., 1985). In this study, consensus refers to a formal process used by the group being studied; its use results in either a consensus decision or no decision, as well as in further embedding the group's consensus processes within its structure.
2. Frey (Citation1994b) advocated the study of natural, bona fide groups in context, using qualitative research approaches; both his own work (Adelman & Frey, Citation1996) and his editing of others’ work (e.g., Frey, Citation1994a Citation2002) have advanced such research. The argument here echoes Frey's arguments and extends them to the study of consensus.
3. Appreciative inquiry is a communicative tool designed to encourage group or organizational change by shifting the focus away from problem analysis and toward identifying group resources (e.g., by clarifying what worked well in the past) and possibilities for the future (e.g., by having the group envision an ideal for the future).
4. Committees at Birch Haven include the alternative transportation, board, common house, finance, landscape, maintenance, process, teen and community room, and young children's committees. Residents volunteer for membership, based mostly on their interest in the work of the committee. It is possible, therefore, that members of the process and maintenance committees would differ in their patience with the consensus process or in their eagerness to complete community improvements.
5. Several cohousing communities use color-coded cards to assist the facilitator in structuring discussions. Birch Haven had appropriated the technique after a visitor from an established cohousing community suggested its use. The ideas that groups should give procedural issues priority over substantive issues and that group members should have clarity about a proposal before discussing it further are consistent with suggestions for communicating to resolve conflict in groups (Renz & Greg, Citation2000).
6. Cohousing communities differ in the way they handle facilitation. Some are committed to the principle that every member of the group should facilitate meetings on a rotating basis, often working as a team of two. Others prefer to have members who are especially skilled, trained, and/or interested serving as facilitators. At Birch Haven, members of the executive board originally scheduled facilitation; at the time of this meeting, the process committee was experimenting with approaches to facilitation. Alicia told me that she reluctantly volunteered to facilitate the September meeting, worrying about the limited time to prepare for the meeting but believing that her experience as a facilitator and her appreciation of both sides in the paving issue might be important to effective facilitation. Early in 2004, the group began to use a pre-planned schedule of facilitation teams of four or five people. Teams include the facilitator; an assistant; and others who take notes, keep time, and serve as the “vibes watcher.”
7. The community refers to this book by Butler and Rothstein (1991) as “the little white book.” Jeff described it as covering “roles, consensus techniques, and the structure of consensus.” He and his wife had let me read their copy of the book before I attended the first meeting. According to the book, once a proposal is made, members ask questions for clarification. Subsequent group discussion may end with a call for consensus or with identification of concerns. If there are unresolved concerns, the proposal can be sent to committee; if the group resolves the concerns, it again calls for consensus, although individual members can stand aside or block the proposal at that point. Butler and Rothstein say that someone's move to block consensus is legitimate only if it is based on group concerns rather than personal ones and that, once consensus on a decision has been reached, the decision stands unless a new consensus replaces it.
At Birch Haven, Mark recalled insisting on making the book “the final authority in all matters of consensus process,” not because he thought it was the best approach, necessarily, but because he “figured that without a shared philosophical and practical base, [they would] spend all [their] time arguing about how to best argue.”