For months now, I’ve been writing a book, chapter by chapter, called The Movement We Need. I am looking at how movements for social change might better meet some of our core needs for safety, belonging, value, agency, and meaning. In my last post I wrote about trauma and agency: how the essence of trauma is powerlessness. We experience trauma when some outside power takes away our ability to make choices, control what happens to us and set boundaries. Activism is one way of taking back our agency by taking action to contest oppressive systems and create a better world.
In order to do that, we need to work with other people. Social change is simplynot something that we can create alone. And when we work together with other people, we need to make decisions. A group that cannot effectively make decisions together cannot function.
(This series of writings is an experiment—I’m writing a book and releasing it a chapter at a time on Substack, accompanied with podcasts available on Substack, Apple, Spotify, etc. This is the second post in the section on Agency, and the eighteenth post in the series. New posts now appear in their own section. Earlier chapters can be found in my archives, numbered to make them easier to find.)
Decision-Making Methods:
To make decisions we need both a method, or methods, and agreements on how we distribute power: that is, who makes which decisions about what? That’s what we call ‘governance’. Not government, but simply the structure by which things get done.
Collective decision making always involves a tension between the individual’s power to get what they want done, and the need to take into consideration the choices, desires, concerns and needs of others. There is no perfect method of decision making that can assure both collective agreement and that I always get my way. So decision making can often be frustrating.
There are three basic families of decision-making methods: by decree, by some form of consensus, or by voting. Within these there are many variations and creative ways that they can be combined. But let’s look at each and examine their strengths and weaknesses.
Decree:
When we make a decision by decree, one person has the authority to say how something will get done and others comply. Decree is most often used in command and control structures, sometimes with consultation and sometimes by fiat. But it’s also the way we make most decisions in our daily lives. I’ve invited you all to lunch: I decide what I will serve. Perhaps I consult with you first to find out if you have any dietary restrictions or preferences I need to take into account, but ultimately, it’s my decision.
In any area where we have autonomous control, we make independent decisions all the time. I’m writing this book, I decide what to say, how to say it, where to put the punctuation and whether or not I’m in favor of the Oxford comma. At some point, I might bring on an editor to get a fresh pair of eyes on what I’ve been writing. The editor will give me constructive criticisms and suggestions, but ultimately I decide whether or not to accept them.
If there are no areas in my life, my work or my social change work in which I can simply make a decision to do something and do it, I’m going to feel continually frustrated and disempowered. Groups that become so anti-authoritarian that every decision must be made by the entire group become extremely frustrating places to work and often end up paralyzed. So finding both an effective decision-making method and a workable system of governance is crucial to a group’s success.
Voting:
Another way of making decisions is by voting. Voting, majority rule, is what most people think of as a democratic process, and it’s the one we use to run our governments here in the United States. We have two sides of an issue; we present the pros and cons of each side and choose between them by majority rule. Voting can be modified as either a simple majority or some form of supermajority, for example, the two thirds vote in the US Senate needed to break a filibuster and move a bill forward. Voting can be done either informally or formally. In the US, when formal votes are taken, most often the procedure used follows Roberts Rules of Order. (1)
Voting has several advantages: it’s clear, it’s familiar to most people, and because we aren’t obligated to satisfy everyone or even to try, things can move ahead and stuff can get done.
Yet voting tends to frame issues in a binary and often adversarial way, and that can sometimes exacerbate conflict. It can be harder to explore a full range of options, or to address one aspect of an issue in a way that might actually improve the course of action decided upon. If the losing minority feels unheard and resentful, they may sabotage the efforts of the majority.
Voting works well for simple decisions: should we meet at 7 or 7:30? And it’s appropriate when there are only two choices: “Only two restaurants open this late at night—do we want Chinese or Italian?” It also works (how well might be debatable) in extremely large groups—the United States!—or for groups that do not have guiding principles in common or an underlying sense of unity—for example, a homeowner’s association where people have come together at random simply because they all own condos in the same development.
Consensus:
Consensus, in classic or modified forms, is an inherently different approach. Ultimately, consensus derives from the ways human groups and communities have made decisions for millennia, by talking over an issue until a sense of the group is reached. Apparently even honeybees work by consensus. (2) When they are searching for a new location for a hive, scouts will go out and seek a potential site. They come back and dance for the group. Gradually, the hive moves toward one or another of the proponents, and when about 80% have coalesced around one site, the swarm takes off. Children playing together use an intuitive form of consensus: “Let’s play house. I’ll be the Mommy.” “I want to be the Mommy, too!” “You can be the second Mommy. This tree is our kitchen…” “And our living room is behind this bush!”
I first learned to use consensus at the Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant blockade in 1981, in central California, where the Abalone Alliance organized to stop the construction of a nuclear facility on an earthquake fault. The consensus process we used was modeled on the organizing done a few years earlier at the Seabrook Nuclear Power Plant in New Hampshire. There, activists were by the Philadelphia-based organization Movement for a New Society, with roots in Quaker social justice traditions. Quakers use a very distinct form of consensus which is core to their spiritual practice. People are free to speak for an issue as their inner light prompts them. Others sit in silence, listening deeply, until eventually a sense of the meeting is reached. Consensus, for Quakers, is a sacred process.
Movement for a New Society trained organizers and protestors to use consensus decision-making, and helped them form affinity groups—small groups that took action together and offered support to one another. Consensus works best in small groups. They also established a system of governance. Affinity groups made decisions by consensus, then sent a representative to a spokescouncil which itself worked by consensus. Working groups formed to take on particular tasks, for example, kitchen crew, media, or medical support. They also sent reps to the spokescouncil, where overall decisions were made.
When consensus is done well, an issue is proposed to the group. A period of questions and discussion follows, in which the group hears the full range of responses, ideas, feelings, enthusiasms, and concerns. If extremely strong objections are heard at this point, objections that could lead to a block, generally the proposal is dropped or shelved. The block, in consensus, is not “I don’t like this idea.” In classic consensus, a block means “This would contradict our foundational principles, or endanger the survival of the group.” Or “This process has been so badly run that not everyone has had a chance to be heard.” Or “I feel so strongly about this that I would have to leave if the group were to go ahead.”
“What do we want to eat for dinner?” First, we gather information: what’s in the garden? The fridge? What constraints do people have? Who has a creative idea? Who wants to cook?
As the discussion goes on, the idea takes shape, incorporating new suggestions and changing to accommodate concerns. Someone has a peanut allergy, so kung pao chicken is off the table. Some people are meat eaters, some vegetarians. Everyone agrees that vegetables are healthy. Eventually, someone formulates a proposal, a clear statement about what the group will do.
“We’re going to harvest lettuce and spinach from the garden, add some tomatoes and celery from the fridge, provide cheese, roast beets, fried tofu, shredded chicken and dressings on the side, and make chef’s salads.”
The proposals is then discussed, and again there’s room for hearing questions, “What kind of cheese?” Concerns, “Soy gives me gas”, additional ideas, “How about grated carrots?” and for accepting or rejecting friendly amendments. The proposal is tweaked until it best incorporates everyone’s ideas and meets everyone’s concerns. There’s room at the end for hearing any unheard concerns, for people to state objections, “I hate beets!” or to stand aside, which means “I won’t participate, but I won’t stop the group from going forward”. Or, in extreme cases, block. “We’re the Animal Rights Collective, we can’t serve chicken!” Again, only if the proposal contradicts the foundational principles of the group, endangers the group, or if someone feels the process has been so badly done that a consensus would not actually be valid. If the process is done well, the group would have heard the objection to chicken early on and it would never have survived in the final proposal.
The advantage of consensus is that it allows everyone to have a voice in shaping a proposal, and there’s room for much more nuance and adjustment. It protects the rights of minorities, and allows everyone to feel that they have an ultimate say in what the group does. Many of us who first learned consensus process in the anti-nuclear movement in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s developed almost a religious devotion to it, because of the tremendous sense of empowerment and agency it gave to us.
The disadvantage of consensus is that it can be time consuming, frustrating, and unless people have some training and some skilled facilitation it can be difficult to implement. It’s costly of time and effort. And people who misunderstand or misuse the power of blocking can stop a group from going forward and taking needed action. It also assumes that people share a common set of core values and common goals. If they don’t, consensus may be impossible to achieve.
Modified Forms of Consensus:
There are also modified forms of consensus. A group may decide that if 100% agreement is not reached, they can fall back on a supermajority vote at some agreed-upon number. In my view, this is often based on a misunderstanding of what consensus actually is about. The most important aspect of consensus is the process of hearing the full range of ideas and concerns and synthesizing a proposal out of them. If that is done well, the agreement at the end could be affirmed by a simple vote and would still give people a sense of being heard and participating in the crafting of the proposal. It’s a process I call B.O.B, meaning ‘Best of Both’. And it’s very similar to a process called “consensus oriented decision making”.(3)
Another way of modifying consensus would be to limit blocking to a subgroup rather than an individual. For, example an affinity group would have to reach consensus to block a proposal; a single individual could not do so. I was once having a discussion with Diana Leafe Christian, who has written a number of books on intentional communities, including Creating a Life Together,(4) and who lives at Earthaven,(5) an intentional community in North Carolina. Diana is a practitioner and a proponent of sociocracy, a system of governance that uses a decision making method similar to consensus, known as ‘consent’.(6)
Sociocracy was developed by Dutch engineer Gerard Endenberg as a method for running his factories democratically. He was influenced by activists and teachers Kees Boeke and Beatrice Boeke-Cadbury, whose school he attended. Some of the governance features of Sociocracy reflect its origin in a business enterprise, and are a bit complicated for activist groups who are all volunteers and not getting paid to attend meetings. But it is actually quite similar to the way we have often organized big mobilizations, which I will describe later.
Consent can be seen as a simplified form of consensus. The difference is that groups might bring proposals and, rather than trying to get everyone’s positive agreement, the group makes sure there are no substantial disagreements, no “paramount objections”. If a proposal brought by a committee does not endanger the group, prevent the group from achieving its aims or prevent someone else from doing their job, if it is “good enough for now and safe enough to try”, it can be adopted, with the understanding that decisions are periodically revisited to be sure they continue to be viable. Sociocracy avoids some of the challenges imposed by trying to reach consensus, especially in a group that includes people who exhibit some of the challenging behaviors that can make agreement difficult.
Avoiding Getting Bogged Down:
When we are in a meeting, we engage in talking. We may also engage in talking about talking. “Talking” means addressing issues of substance: what are we going to do, what conditions are we facing, what information do we need, etc.
“Talking about talking” is talking about what order we’re going to take up issues, how long we might spend on each, etcetera. People, being what they are, can get just as invested defending the order they think the meeting should be in as in any issue of substance, and can easily argue about the agenda until most of the time allotted for the meeting has been used up and nothing has been accomplished. When a group is bogged down in talking about talking, people end up feeling that their time has been wasted. As a facilitator, I prefer to set the agenda ahead of time, unless it’s a very small and informal meeting. It’s a service to the group for the facilitators to spend time finding a logical and coherent order in which to address topics, and a great time-saver.
Consensus is costly of time and effort, and groups function more effectively when we save it for important questions. I like to reserve it for items of substance, for example, the group’s core values and priorities, or for issues that can incorporate a range of creative ideas: what do we want to do for the next protest? How do we want to design our community garden?
Consensus is not very effective when we’re making a choice that truly is binary. If the issue is ‘would we rather be shot or hung?’ we will never reach consensus on it. Better just to vote, or flip a coin.
It’s also a waste of everyone’s time to try to reach consensus on a question like “How long should we spend for lunch?” I have literally seen a group argue for an hour about whether to take a forty-five minute or one hour lunch break. As a facilitator, I would either designate a lunchtime, or take a straw poll, a non-binding vote that can indicate the group’s overall preference.
Consensus also works best when the group receives some training in it—as does voting, for that matter. In many conventional organizations, the group president or leader runs all the meetings. In consensus, a facilitator guides the meeting, and that role rotates to prevent any individual accruing too much power. Facilitators stay neutral on the issues. Their job is to guide the group to a decision, not to support one faction or another.
Skilled facilitators help keep the group on track and moving forward. They may reflect back and summarize what they hear, help identify common ground, clarify proposals, and resolve conflicts. If a group gets deadlocked and polarized, they can call for representatives from both sides to go off together, possibly with a mediator, and try to come up with a solution. Chances are, if the extreme advocates can come to agreement, everyone else will go along with it.
Poly Decision Making:
You do not need to be monogamous in your decision-making method. Consensus will not feel spurned if you vote on simple questions, or let individuals make many day-to-day decisions independently. If there is doubt about which category an issue falls into, the group can take a vote to decide whether on not it needs a full consensus. So, if the group is revising its principles of unity, they would use a full consensus process. If it’s deciding whether someone who is not part of the group could come to the talent show, they might simply vote.
Governance:
In finding the balance between individual agency and group cohesion, I find it helpful to remember that your decision-making method is different from your system of governance. Your governance structure tells you who makes which decisions. In mobilizations, for example, we might have working groups that handle legal support, scenario planning, communications, media, food, site preparation, etc. The media committee wouldn’t need to worry about the menu for dinner, and the cooks don’t have to proofread the press releases.
Because consensus works best in small groups, big mobilizations were organized into affinity groups, small groups that make decisions together about how they’re going to take action. They would then send representatives to spokescouncils, where overall decisions about the action are taken. Working groups that take on specific tasks would also report back to the spokes council, as well as, at times, a coordinating group.
This is a structure that has worked well. Generally, everyone is welcome to come to the spokescouncil meeting, but only spokes can speak. They would sit in a central circle, and at times, members of their affinity group might sit behind to be available for a quick consultation on issues that arise.
There are hundreds of volumes of advice and dozens of graduate programs devoted to learning how to make meetings work better and make organizations more effective. I don’t have space to reproduce all of that knowledge here. But I’ve included this topic in the section on agency because only when our group is effective can we get what we want done and actually exercise power in ways that effectively change the world. So it is worthwhile spending time and effort to make sure that any group you’re in has the tools it needs to function effectively.
When you decide on a governance structure, consider what function each group serves, and what power they need to carry out that function. If the Media Working Group needs to send out press releases when an event occurs, don’t constrain them to have every press release vetted by a General Assembly that only meets at 6 pm—as I’ve seen groups do! Instead, have the General Assembly agree on a set of criteria for the Media Working Group, and then empower them to write the releases.
A Cautionary Tale:
Occupy was an example of a movement that used ineffective decision-making methods and unclear governance. The wonder of Occupy was how swiftly groups sprang up all over the country in the Fall of 2011, after a video went viral of young people from the original Occupation of Wall Street who were marching on the Brooklyn Bridge and were brutalized by police.
All over the country, people were inspired by what they saw happening in New York, and started Occupations in their towns. Many of them had never organized anything before. Right at that time, my book, The Empowerment Manual,(7) came out and I had organized a book tour that took me to multiple cities, so I was able to visit twelve different Occupations. I was inspired by the tremendous enthusiasm and commitment of the people I met camping out in their own cities to highlight economic inequality.
But I also sometimes didn’t know whether to be amused or appalled. For example, in Fort Myers FL, a small Occupation took over a local park. They were holding a meeting using the ‘people’s mic’, where one speaker says a phrase and the crowd repeats it so that those further back can hear. It was used in Zucotti Park, the original Occupation site in New York, when bullhorns were outlawed. It’s a cumbersome way to hold a meeting but, in a huge crowd without any amplified sound, it at least allows discussion to take place.
But in Fort Myers, there were only about thirty people at most. We could easily hear each other without the people’s mic. When I asked why they were using it, they looked at me in some confusion. “That’s what we saw on the Internet,” they said. “That’s how they were doing it in New York.”
The Occupy movement is an example of why it’s important to have an effective system of governance and decision making. It was a movement that mobilized tremendous outrage and energy, and did in many ways open up a much-needed national dialogue issues of economy and equality. The many Occupations were all different, but generally attempted to work by consensus. While the original Occupation in New York benefited from a process group who had trained for months in consensus and facilitation, other Occupations often lacked skilled facilitators or consensus training. They often failed to develop a clear governance structure, so that everyone was trying to make decisions on everything in large, general assemblies. They had parts of a system that activists had used effectively in the past, but lacked some other key parts, like an ecosystem missing a keystone species. Decisions bogged down, and when local governments decided to clear the Occupations, they could withstand the oppression that came down. Many important groups came out of the Occupy movement, from an anti-eviction group in San Francisco to a Mutual Aid group in New York that responded after Hurricane Sandy. And Occupy made the issue of income inequality a central one in national discourse. But without clear structure and effective decision-making, the movement as a whole could not survive.(8)
Agency and Choice:
Ultimately a sense of agency means being able to make the choices that impact our lives. Social movements can allow us to garner more power to do so. But to be effective, the movement itself must be able to make choices, that is make decisions, in ways that balance individual autonomy, collective solidarity, good process and efficiency. We will always need to balance hearing everyone’s voice, coming to agreement with people who have differing opinions, ideas, and priorities, and actually getting things done. But groups that strike a reasonable balance can succeed, and those who don’t, fail. As we organize, it is worthwhile investing time, thought, and training to develop effective systems of governance and decision making.
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Notes:
1) Robert’s Rules of Order Website:
2) Thomas D. Seeley. Honeybee Democracy. New Jersey, Princeton University Press, 2011
See also this lecture by Tom Seeley at Cornell University, November, 2011:
3) Tim Hartnett. Consensus Oriented Decision Making: The CODM Model for Facilitating Groups to Wide Agreement. Gabriola Island, BC, New Society Publishers, 2011
4) Diana Leafe Christian. Creating a Life Together: Practical Tools to Grow Ecovillages and Intentional Communities. Gabriola Island, BC, New Society Publishers, 2003
5) Earthaven Ecovillage.
6) A good overview of sociocracy can be found here: https://www.sociocracyforall.org/sociocracy/
7) Starhawk. The Empowerment Manual: A Guide for Collaborative Groups. Gabriola Island, BC, New Society Publishers, 2011
8) This is, of course, my own take on the question of what happened to Occupy. There are many other perspectives, including that of the late David Graeber, one of the key figures in the movement and a hugely influential thinker and writer on anarchism, anthropology and social movements.
David Graeber. The Democracy Project: A History, A Crisis, A Movement. New York. Random House, 2013.
Holmes, Marisa. “David Graeber’s Real Conntribution to Occupy Wall Street Wasn’t a Phrase, It Was A Process.” https://novaramedia.com/2021/09/04/david-graebers-real-contribution-to-occupy-wall-street-wasnt-a-phrase-it-was-a-process/
Schneider, Nathan. “Some Assembly Required: Witnessing the Birth of Occupy Wall
Street”. https://www.nonviolent-conflict.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/schneider_some_assembly_required.pdf
This post has been syndicated from Starhawk’s Substack, where it was published under this address.