Introduction
Systemic consensus is a decision making process developed by Erich Visotschnig and Siegfried Schrotta - two ex-IBM system analysts from Austria - in 2001.[website] A key feature is the use of scalar, resistance voting: in contrast to the competition-promoting plurality vote where people can be dragged into outcomes they didn't want, the resistance vote promotes collaboration by selecting the outcome most people can live with.[details] Systemic consensus can occur online and offline, in short and full formats - all of which contain the same fundamental stages described below.
NB: This form of decision making is probably not what you're used to and requires practice and reprogramming of old habits.
Overview
The systemic consensus process takes a question as an input and gives a decision as an output. The framework for this process is composed of the following stages;
The question
The systemic consensus cycle
- Express needs, wants and values
- Form proposals
- Vote
The decision
Express needs, wants and values
When a question is presented within the systemic consensus cycle, the first thing to do is gather the needs, wants and values (herein NWVs) of the involved individuals. This allows those involved to connect with each other and communicate their feelings in a structured way which is highly important because the whole process is emotionally quite 'cold' and deliberately avoids discussion to arrive at decisions. 'Needs, wants and values' should concisely reflect how people feel about the question and not incorporate proposals.
3.b Form proposals
The next stage in the cycle is to form proposals which answer the question. This is also done individually, typically with a time limit. No proposals are excluded from the vote, but writing good proposals is useful and will likely receive less resistance. Good proposals are typically;
- Coherent: Actually referring to the question asked.
- Concise: No longer than they need to be.
- Clear: Without ambiguity
Add always the zero solution and the further solution as control proposals.
The zero solution: This proposal means that, if chosen with least resistance, whatever was in place before will stay in place. If the group can not agree on what was in place before easily the zero solution could be named chaos, general disagreement or uncertainty.
The further solutions option: With this option the group can decide to restart the systemic consensus in order to create better proposals in the coming round. If chosen with the least resistance the systemic consensus goes directly again to the needs, wants and values and the forming of proposals.
