Since I want consensus and agreement to work, I'm doing research on decision making processes.
This is a long post, but I encourage you to read it as it explains my stance on this issue. http://www.wilsonstrategies.com/notebook_120805.php The above link is a good article that describes four major decision making processes and when to best use them: * Command, for when in a crisis and one person is able to make decisions effectively * Delegation, to increase efficiency and maximize contributions of team members * Majority vote, to include a large number of people at relatively low cost * Consensus, when you want high quality input and commitment with follow- through from a group In the spirit of hacking, I think it is prudent that we synthesize a pattern that encompasses elements from these approaches that mesh well with what we are trying to build. I feel that the Command pattern can easily lead to an unwanted concentration of power and results in resentment. Delegation also might lead to the same situation, as it is essentially the Command pattern distributed among a select group of individuals, each with a specific domain of decision power. SYNHAK implements a good synthesis of those two via our officers. The Treasurer, Secretary, and Champions have direct control over limited domains: Money, records, and minimal day-to-day upkeep, respectively. The officers are still bound to operate with the membership's wishes through the proposal process (I can't spend non-essential money without approval), yet are given quite a bit of leeway in making on the spot decisions about things, such as was the case with "We need trash service and we need it yesterday". I am not in favor of using more from the Command and Delegation patterns in our governance structure, as it burdens volunteer contributors with too much responsibility. The management of a hackerspace is inherently unreliable. :) For everything else, it then comes down to how to apply the Majority Vote and Consensus patterns. As described in the article, > For starters, up to 49% of participants can still wind up being "losers" > even though they were included in the decision-making process. This outcome > is less than ideal when an organization is counting on everyone to implement > a decision enthusiastically. For this reason, I don't feel that Majority Vote can apply to the vast majority of our decisions, especially proposals. We're all volunteers. Nobody gets paid. Our only return on investment is based on the raw effort we are willing to put into the space. If the community votes on a controversial decision and just barely half of us support it, how can anyone possibly expect it to get implemented? Nobody here is legally bound by any decision made at a Tuesday meeting. As an example: If a vote is held to move the kitchen to another portion of the space with 5/20 voting yes, 4/20 voting no, and 11 abstaining, what shall be the outcome for the dissenters who move the kitchen back the next day? Do they get removed and banned from the space for do-ocratically expressing disagreement with those 5 individuals? Is another vote called to make that decision, but instead ending up with 13 folks voting against a ban while 7 vote for one? What if the people voting in favor of moving the kitchen aren't even willing to move the kitchen? Has the vote now conscripted those who have abstained and dissented into doing the bidding of the majority? What incentive do they have to do so? If the kitchen does get moved by those who voted in favor but the move ends up making the kitchen completely unusable for those who voted against, what can they do? Have another vote to move it back and get the same result of losing the vote? The demotivation felt is almost palpable. Their outlook looks rather bleak, so they would quickly abandon the notion that the kitchen is useful. The end result is a decline in activity and use of the space, possibly with potentially useful contributors abandoning SYNHAK altogether. Their hopes were completely crushed when a majority of people decided that their approach was the wrong one. Harmonious decisions are essential to the ongoing survival of SYNHAK as a community. Every decision must be supported by everyone if anything is expected to get done. For this reason, I don't see how Majority Voting can work at SYNHAK. If we want to use Majority Voting, I posit that we would also need to remove the notion of Do-ocracy. Do-ocracy empowers us to make changes without bogging down everyone else in the decision making process. It allows pragmatism to reign supreme over rules developed without foresight. Majority Voting would essentially make Do-ocracy worthless. Do-ocracy would then become "If you want something done, do it, but remember to be excellent to each other when doing so, unless you want to put up a vote about it and make someone else do it for you."
signature.asc
Description: This is a digitally signed message part.
_______________________________________________ Discuss mailing list [email protected] https://synhak.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
