These notes are based on an audio recording of a conversation between Brian Robertson and Anthony Moquin of Ternary Software Inc. It was shared on the Yahoo Sociocracy group on May 29, 2006. It has been edited and hopefully retains the key concepts that arose during this exploration of the differences between Consent and Consensus. (or at least what most people think of when they hear the word consensus)

This is not a theoretical discussion of the subject but comes from both Brian and Anthony's experience in managing a for profit company operating using Sociocracy (and Holacracy^TM) to achieve its aims. Ternary Software Inc. in Philadelphia, PA, has won awards for being one of the best places to work in that city.

Consensus does not have a very well defined meaning. It is not a decision making process. It is something we either have or don't have. You can be either in consensus about something, or not in consensus. It is not an actual decision making system, whereas consent is.

Critical to understanding of Consent is that you can not think about Consent in the context of just one decision making meeting. That doesn't capture what is meant by Consent, it is just one little piece. It is more about dynamic steering and that doesn't just happen in one meeting. By dynamic steering, what is meant is, you look at decision making entirely different. You are not just stepping aside from what you do to make a big decision about something, then going back to what you do. It is not about making a big decision about something...it is about being in a flow state...about constantly steering...like riding a bike...you are not starting up front with a decision, you are not deciding to steer but just steering...getting an idea about what needs to be done and then steering. It changes the kind of things you hear and think about when making a decision.

At Ternary consensus didn't scale well past about 11 people. At that point it was hard to find a decision that everybody agreed with, or felt was right for the system and could get behind...it wasn't the meeting process that was the problem but what people thought about the results of the process. The goal of the session is what people "thought" about...and the difference is subtle. Consent adds some kind of facilitation to the process but so do some forms of consensus, for example; "it has to be a veto"; Some forms of consensus even say you have to state the reasons. That's not the real difference; it's not in the process but is in the "expectation" of what you are trying to do.

What was called consensus in the past was about making big decisions and now using Consent, it is not thought of that way. It is not about the decision.

Consent is a verb...to be constantly steering the process...In the meeting where you are making a decision the difference between consensus and consent doesn't matter as much, but outside of meetings it matters a lot what the effect of the decision is. You don't have to DECIDE and then live with it...It is not about thinking about what to decide, but just about what to do "in the moment" It is not about what made sense yesterday or tomorrow. It is a very judgment free process...even talking about success and failure in the process really doesn't make much sense, the present just is. It is about aligning to that present, emerging moment. A process can be followed by rote, like sticking to the agenda, but not be achieving what is meant by dynamic steering.

Consent is about a mind set shift and a structure to support that. About living in the moment, feeling what arises and looking at every single second as an opportunity to steer towards whatever goal we are heading for.

The way Ternary could tell that consensus was not working was when a decision needed to be made about what they were going to do to be in line with their 5 year vision/mission. They wanted everybody to be involved in that decision because it was important that they all bought into what was decided. A whole day was devoted to it and everyone was same room. It was a very painful day for all. They came out of that meeting without a decision and it wasn't until the next day in a follow on meeting that a decision was made. These people are a group of smart, open-minded guys who found it was difficult to come to a common opinion of what to do. It seemed like everyone needed to have the same opinion of what to do. But dealing with opinions is like being in fake land, with abstracts and theory only and not what is real. Like; what do we know now...? What will it be like 5 years out...? That is not to say that 5 year planning is not part of the Consent process. It is done all the time and that is key...ALL the time...not every 5 years. There is a constant focus on steering with this Consent understanding about where an organization wants to be in 5 years...Asking; What does reality seem to be telling us right now about the next 5 years...? And saying that if, in the future, reality tells us something different we will adapt and change. Everyone then can come at the decision making process without fear of making the wrong decision.

Whereas previously people at Ternary felt a lot of fear at the effort to come to consensus. It is true that there is something to fear if you are locking yourself into a direction for 5 years. The fear actually provides value to that system...but when you approach it with this dynamic steering idea and the structures to support it, the fear just dies away because it is not needed. There are still certain times when a decision isn't easily reversed, so in those times you put more predictive emphasis on it so it transcends and precludes previous decision making styles. Those cases are rare; the vast majority of decisions can be made by looking constantly at what works now and not worrying too much about when things change. Trusting in our ability to ride or flow with what emerges. What is needed is an "approximation" of a good decision. One that people won't a feel a tremendous amount of pain just trying. A decision that is within the limits of the tolerance of everyone in the meeting. A decision that will not cause the system to grind to a halt, or cause anyone to leave the company. One that won't cause undue amounts of work or harm. As long as it is within the limits of tolerance of the system, only a good approximation for the direction that the system needs to move is needed. Then a decision is made in line with that direction.

Real objections arise over time and are looked at to see if they actually do represent the cause of a dysfunction in the system. These objections are not personal, they are information that surfaces by what reality is revealing.

One of the key things in considering the difference in decision by Consent is found in a question that comes up often. What blocks a decision...? Consensus is looking at a big decision...other decision making styles have this problem too, democracy, autocratic, traditional styles...having to make a big decisions. There are things that can either make the decision or block the decision from being made. None of that applies with Consent and dynamic steering. You can not block a decision in Consent ...it doesn't even make sense to think about it in that context. It is not about making or blocking a big decision but about attuning to that creative impulse and allowing it to flow through you and flowing with it. You can see some of the projections of that in the meeting process itself...For example when someone voices an objection, it doesn't block the decision at all ...All it does is add yet another perspective that will be integrated into the final decision. People don't think of it as blocking a decision. It is looked at as a duty to raise an objection when it is a perspective that needs to be included. It is about steering. The system allows the right steering to arise.

In Sociocracy it is critical that the group making the decision has a shared AIM...You cannot steer together if you are trying to go in different directions. A naturally emerging holon is a group of people working towards a common aim. It is a trap to try to make a decision by Consent if Aims are different. An example is; What to do or where to go this weekend...?...You can use consent to choose a different style otherwise you get into an ego struggle about what to do. If it comes down to a personal preference then that is about ego. If there is no broader aim, it makes sense to use another method. In a training class this came up in deciding what kind of party to have. Consent pulled it up to a higher level, a transpersonal level where you could ask the right question. Instead of What kind of party should we have...? to...How should we go about deciding what kind of party to have...? What concerns do we have...? there was a shared AIM, with tangible social benefits, such as building better team operations. People get to know one another better. You are not going to be able to decide when considering...should we have a pizza party or a beer party or a pool party...? because you are just talking about personal preferences. You can pull it up to say; we are going to meet these needs, then one person can be delegated to go and make that decision. Consent can help you figure out when you are dealing with those kinds of questions and pull you up to a level where you can deal with them. There is always some transpersonal level over any decision and if you pull up to the right level of scale you can address the question from a place beyond ego, in a transpersonal space.

In order for consent to work you do need some form of consensus in the group to begin with. If you get a group of people together there is some agenda, some reason that they are even talking together in the first place. There is an Aim or Purpose and just discovering what that is together is some form of implicit or explicit consensus. That sets the stage for a Consent based decision making process that allows you to guide the system, given that same set of people. That Aim isn't decided upon, it is always there. Any group of people that find themselves together discussing something have at some level of scale, a shared aim. Getting to that shared aim lets you to get into that powerful WE space that lets you get transpersonal. There is a lot more to it...it is not enough just to have this talk that says; We're going to get to a transpersonal space, we're going to make decisions that are beyond our ego, that are good for everyone and we're not going to be scared of the future. That doesn't work. You have to have a supporting structure. People have to see it tangibly and experience that the fear is useless. We often see this with new people coming into Ternary. They are full of fear around decision making. It is common, everywhere in the world and it takes awhile to see that fear is not useful here. There is no need for it, it is not helping and it is getting in the way. This is in comparison to what they were used to in their previous life, where that fear was useful. Here they see that fear is not helpful and this helps them to get past it, to dissolve it. Part of that has to do directly with the dynamic steering. The fact that every moment is treated as a moment arising that we can figure out and attune to...and in that moment there is no such thing as success or failure...no such thing as right or wrong, no such thing as an opinion in the moment. Those things don't exist in the moment...they are artificial constructs that we can use to help say; What will let us be successful down the road...? None of that matters in the moment. What matters are asking; What are the limits of tolerance in the system in the moment and How can We steer in the present...?

Something that goes along with this is about the language used in a consent based process. For example, someone may make a point and someone else will say "I agree" or "I disagree". As soon as you say I agree or I disagree it is denying some part of reality. Ultimately the other person perceives something. It is not right or wrong... it just is his reality. It might be largely flawed, the joke is "Nobody's smart enough to be 100% wrong", but there is some truth in that and the experience itself is a view on truth, it just is. So if I say I agree or disagree, what does that mean...? It is really a meaningless statement, a harmful statement. It is denying the other persons perception and their attunement to truth is largely lost from the dialogue. It is effectively judging the experience and although people may intend not to judge the interpretation, that is often not what happens. It shifts people out of a transpersonal space. What you often hear around Ternary is, "I resonate with that" meaning, I am attuned to that perception too or I am not resonating with that which has an implied question in it...Help me resonate with that, Tell me more. Help me resonate to a broader fuller spectrum of consciousness, of reality. You hear that kind of language in a Sociocratic culture all the time. It is built into this idea of dynamic steering and consent. There is this idea of everyone bringing their perspective (there is truth in every one) and integrating them all together. It's not a question of who agrees or disagrees, that is irrelevant. It is about tuning into the broadest spectrum on truth that we can in the moment and letting it arise through us as a group. It is a completely different thing than what most people do when talking about consensus...The actual meeting process may look very similar to some types of consensus meeting processes.

A group or circle in Sociocracy (Holacracy^TM) has a voice of its own. It is easy to think that, because everyone agrees that it is the best voice for the circle. Built into consent is the idea of representing a view point or perspective. Consent based decision making is finding something that can work, given the different view points on reality and steering the circle in line with the collective voice. We are not talking about some dominant monad for the individuals in the circle or some collective or even the sum of everyone there or everyone plus. It is a totally different dimension. This is what has been experienced at Ternary since the requisite organization has been in place. Circles have a certain voice or will, a character or creative impulse of their own that is not about the people involved. This is a totally orthogonal thing, common to circles. The people can be a vehicle for that "will", so the voice and creative impulse of the circle can emerge into the world. And yet it does seem to have something to do with the circle, at the level of scale we are talking about. It is a very impersonal, transpersonal process. There is a feel when you are in the process of letting what wants to emerge, emerge through you. The question comes up; Who wants this to emerge...? It is not anyone in the group, or the sum of the group. It is not the group at all. Or even the collective of the individuals of the group. It is more about a feeling, that what wants this to emerge is the Circle. Some might say Spirit. Yet, it seems like there is this thing in between that is taking on a life of it's own We wonder, Where did this decision come from...? Often it is hard to put your finger on it. It's not my idea... not his idea... it wasn't our idea. And that is a confusing point. As soon as you say the circle made the decision, it is easy to think it WE made the decision. Another way to describe it is that the system made the decision. Sharing perspectives helps you to see the system and that informs the decision making process. The system itself then makes the decision with Consent. There really are no decisions. Nobody makes decisions. Decisions emerge, that is why they can't be blocked. You can't block a decision that you are not making. All you are doing is adding perspectives. The decision is emerging through the integration of those perspectives and the decision that emerges doesn't come from any of us, it comes through all of us.

A feeling observed at Ternary in a few people is that they haven't quite gotten what Consent means...they have had some discomfort at the speed with which decisions are made. To them it seemed as though; Whomever comes up with an idea first wins because it was the quickest one that could possible work. It sometimes takes months of living with it to "get it". Initially, moving to consent based decision making may feel like one part of your voice is being suppressed because it is limiting the kinds of things you are allowed to bring up as valid concerns towards the decision making process. For instance; that could end in a disaster...it's theoretically possible. The injection of fear is not allowed. It is explicitly disallowed. It doesn't make sense. A paramount objection can not be based on a hypothetical situation or conjecture. So, the system limits what people "can" bring to the discussion. In that sense it is allowing the voice of the circle to emerge. It limits fear and ego. It would be a negative thing to limit fear if the fear were useful. If a bear is chasing you, you want to feel fear because it is useful. You want that adrenalin boost. If you don't feel the fear then you sit there until the bear mauls you. Fear is useful in most environments. Consent provides a context and a system to insure the fear is "not useful" and then it limits it. It is not a built in rule to limit fear, in fact you would call things like that out in a Sociocratic meeting during the check in or opening round.

Emotions are a clue about the system, about the context, about the group itself. They can inform about the perspective that is presented and yet they can't and don't need to dominate the decision making process. They don't dominate because there is a system in place to make sure that the fear is not useful. The system is structured to make sure that people have a forum at which they can address their tensions. Fear is totally useful when you can't dynamically steer constantly. If you can't live in the moment, in the present and let what arises rise....adapt to that, follow that, surf it.... if you can't do that, then the fear is potentially useful. When there is a forum, and everyone knows how to get tensions addressed, how to surf the rising wave because it is codified in the management and leadership systems, suddenly it becomes useful to limit the fear. It is still important to still listen to it, because usually there is some perspective hidden in the fear that can be incorporated in the now, something to inform it. At Ternary we dig into that, talk a lot about fears. Fears as objects, not living out of it. When new people come in, we make sure that they know how to open up and flow with it. What it takes is being truthful about what you are feeling and to understand that the whole system is going to respect you and not judge you. It is not about checking your emotions at the door. Exploring; Why are you are having a feeling...? is encouraged and we ask; How can we steer the system so you don't have to feel that anymore...? With Consent, negative emotions are just new perspectives. They resonate with truth, they are arising, and they just ARE. They are compassionately embraced and enfolded into decisions...making them no longer useful...helping people move beyond negative emotions because the system doesn't benefit from the fear.

One of the coolest thing about Sociocracy is it encourages you to open up and be truthful about what you see and what you feel because the process respects the perspective. It is useful as information and it shows how useful by allowing the decisions to incorporate aspects that mitigate the fear. At the same time promoting living in the present to avoid the baggage of worrying about what may happen in 5 years. There are subtle ways that fear is destructive, not just in 5 year planning. If you are not focused in the moment and trusting the systems ability to ride that moment, it suddenly makes sense to be careful about what you say or what you write, or who you tell something to, because it can suddenly send the system flying out of whack. That can not happen in a Sociocratic system. It is hard to imagine what could disturb the system that much from within. It becomes exactly the opposite, the more people can voice, raise, tell other people, communicate the better. For example, Ternary has an open salary system where nothing is closed because it is not useful. It is not about openness being a value, like; everything should be open around here damn it! That kills companies. Sociocracy makes it useful to be open, to be beyond that. There is a compassionate embrace that comes with that, because what is useful is aligned with what is honoring people.

A question that comes up a lot is; What is a paramount objection...? No one has yet come up with a really good definition of it and it hasn't been answered fully. It's a good question though. It comes up more with people new to Sociocracy. It doesn't come up once people have really gotten the system. Sometimes it is discussed academically. We are still searching for an authoritative definition of what a paramount objection really is. There is good reason for not being able to find a great definition and that is, that what happens when you put all these structures and systems in place, what emerges...arises, is really beyond any individuals wish. It is not something that can be captured with words, not with the vocabulary we have. As soon as you use words to try to describe it you are no longer talking about what happens in consent. It is this flow state and as soon as you start trying to define it, you are only talking about it and it doesn't make sense. Definitions like "it is a reasoned argument that is critically important" don't really communicate what the system really feels like from within. With that definition, how do you know what is critical...? How do you know what is paramount...? Only your experience is truth to you. That's what is paramount. If you are experiencing something and interpreting it as outside your limits of tolerance or the tolerance of the system, that is a paramount objection. If you have a sense that there might be something that could even possibly be outside the limits, it is you duty to express your perspective. If you have an urge to express a perspective it doesn't mean it is going to block the decision. The idea is that if there is a perspective arising it is integrated into the decision with the constant focus on steering dynamically in the moment. As soon as you loose that focus it is not possible to steer dynamically. Now you have to get into rational mind land, like; if this, then that might happen...Attempting to use theory to make decisions that way tends to make the decision making process devolve. If you can stay focused in the moment and trust in your ability to continually do that, suddenly, whatever perspective you have surfacing is a paramount perspective to bring up and it will get integrated in the system. It isn't possible to say who will integrate it, just that it will get integrated. It is not possible to describe the process because it is not just a process it is a state. There is certainly techniques to help get into that state. It requires having the structure to support the dynamic steering and to support the ability to continually stay in an arising moment state around group decision making. If you don't have that, it is not possible to get into that state for one decision. Or it might be possible but not likely as useful or practical to sustain it.

Another common question is this; This sounds like consensus...? Often, it does for good reason. If you look at the specific tangible process it does look similar. But after experiencing it for a few months people say. This is nothing like consensus!! Consent can't even be compared to consensus. It is a different dimension. It is not a matter of liking it or not liking it. It is just totally different. Consensus is not a decision making system like Consent. One of the ways it is different is that not all decisions are made by everybody. One of the things you hear about consensus is that anyone can take part in any discussion or decision. In Sociocracy it is not that you can't, it is irrelevant. The way it is viewed is that every perspective is represented that needs to be.

The process of Double Linking and other aspects of decision making are limited to the group that is naturally focused in that space and at the appropriate level of scale. The group has links representing the context, both to the broader environment and focused to the specific or lower level teams. All those perspectives are represented and brought forth and again there is no fear. So what if the circle above makes the wrong decision. What is that...? What is a wrong decision...? Even that language is not relevant in the system. It just IS the decision that emerged at that point and it can be adjusted. Sociocracy and Consent sets up a structure that allows that to happen.

A driving force of consensus is that people involved in a decision making process are heard in their concerns. Later they may realize that some perspective that was important was not integrated into the decision. If that happens it is often hard to get everybody back together to change or renegotiate the decision. This is one of the insights that initially brings people to consensus. They recognize that all perspectives may add value. The tension is felt when someone in the group misses a meeting and isn't heard, even when it may be practical to leave them out (as when someone is out of town.)

In Consent, perspectives can be safely left out of a specific decision but they are NOT left out of the process. The definition of the decision making process is being expanded to include the whole organization, over time. All decisions are published and anyone can have a paramount objection, or perspective to any decision that is made throughout the whole organization. There is a specific process for getting an objection (or a proposal) heard, and since it takes much less time in the first place to come to a decision there isn't as much problem revisiting it later. A lot of people are scared, or very concerned about revisiting a decision at any time because decisions take so long to make in the first place that revisiting them often would be a nightmare. The reality is that the reason they take so long in the first place is that the structure is lacking. Perhaps it is missing for good reason. It might not have been time for that structure to emerge yet. But often it can take a long time because of the structure that is in place and because people are not coming in with the expectation of being able to revisit decisions as new things arise.

Dynamic Steering allows decisions to be constantly revisited. When you put that expectation in place you can then show people tangibly how it works. It can take awhile for adoption of the process before people really believe it works and act out of it. Once people experience Consent they come to know that they can just attune to what arises and not worry about tomorrow. Instead, they can make a quick decision now and adapt it tomorrow. Decision making then speeds up radically. It goes to people finding how to get within the limits of tolerance. It doesn't have to be perfect; in fact we're not looking for the perfect decision. There is no such thing as the perfect decision...a great decision is made over time...not by sitting down and designing it. Great decisions are made by starting with an acceptable one, getting data, some feedback and making it better. That is what dynamic steering is about.

Consent vs. Consensus.

Transcribed and edited by Maggie Dutton, of SociocracyInAction.ca

For more information on Holacracy^TM, please visit www.holacracy.org.