Facilitating Better Decisions:

Applying Best Practices in Participatory Decision-Making

Do you want to…

• help your group make time-efficient decisions?
• turn creative differences into an advantage?
• eliminate political struggle?
• give everyone a voice?

Formal Consensus and Sociocratic Consent are systems used in organisations worldwide, including businesses, intentional communities and activist groups. They offer a quick way to get the best creative decision a group can invent. They do not require unanimous agreement, and turn conflict into a resource.

We have integrated these two systems into a simple, coherent whole.  Participants will learn how to facilitate groups using this integrated version.

By the end of the day, participants will know the basic steps of the decision-making process, and have practiced using the method. We will have extensive discussion of real-life examples (including ones from your own organisations). We will also focus on developing four key facilitation skills — the Four Powers of Integrity — which are essential for leading groups in a way that frees the power and creativity of the people involved.

These classes are charged on a sliding scale, from £5 up to £75. We suggest that the fully employed pay £40 or more. If you can afford it, your funds will help us keep the door open to less wealthy community leaders; thank you in advance for your generous contribution.

If no date is shown that works for you, please get in touch. We can arrange dates to suit, or visit your team to offer this or bespoke training.

To find other workshop dates, go to our events calendar.
For any questions about this workshop contact us.

Workshops are taught by Nathaniel White, Martin Grimshaw or one of our other professional facilitators.  Nathaniel White trained with the author of the Formal Consensus manual, C.T. Butler, in 1997, and contributed to the most recent version of the manual. Nathaniel has also trained with and is currently mentored by internationally-known Sociocratic Consultant John Buck.  Nathaniel says:

“Formal Consensus and Sociocratic Consent are the two best decision-making systems I’ve found for drawing out the creative intelligence of a group. They allow participants to empower themselves, to increase the value of diverse group perspectives, to draw out (rather than suppress) unconscious information, and to create shared ownership of decisions (and thus more commitment to effective execution) among the full group. Although I have seen very skilled consensus decision-making in groups that do not use these systems, many of those groups can’t easily pass on what they do because they have skills — not a system.”

For more information about these systems, you may download and read the following two resources:

On Conflict and Consensus - C.T. Butler

Creative Forces of Self-Organization - John Buck and Gerard Endenberg