We try to do things in an equitable, non-hierarchical way in our co-operative. Making our decisions more explicit by documenting and communicating the mechanisms we use is one small part of this process.

In the early days, we tended to rely on consensus alone to make decisions. As we’ve scaled, we’ve defined what we mean by consensus, and added new ways to make decisions that allow us to take actions quickly, while ensuring everyone has a chance to put forward their questions or concerns.

With the help of Nati and Rich at The Hum, we’ve been developing new mechanisms, processes and vocabulary around making decisions internally.

These mechanisms act as tools we can draw on, rather than discrete processes that exist in isolation. It’s also important to note that they aren’t perfect — we’re constantly developing and learning how to make decisions better.

There are four main mechanisms we use: consent, consensus, advice and mandate.

Consent (or Good Enough for Now, Safe Enough to Try)

A proposal is made and then refined until there are no significant objections to it. Decisions can be blocked if the outcome would be damaging to our co-operative — they cannot be blocked because someone doesn’t like it or has a better idea.

Not everyone needs to agree, only to not block. There should be comfort with the general direction, if not the specific details.

We assign a facilitator to keep the discussion on track, guide the process and encourage clarity of expression. For example, a facilitator might respond to someone’s comment by asking whether it is simply a slightly negative feeling about a proposal or whether it is an outright objection to it.

We use this mechanism when everyone is affected by a decision, but that decision is low risk or reversible. It’s a useful way to try things for a limited period of time, followed by a review of what worked and what didn’t.

For example, we used this system for agreeing a new cadence for our weekly co-operative meetings. Ultimately the new meeting cadence didn’t work for us, but it had been good enough and safe to try. After 8 months we reversed the decision and returned to (and developed) our old meeting system.

Consensus (or Maximising Preference and Minimising Tolerance)

Consensus is an iterative process involving everyone coming to an agreement they can live with. It might not be everyone’s first choice, it might end up as a compromise, but everyone affected has expressed approval to go ahead. The decision is made in the interests of the group, not (necessarily) the individuals.

Taking time to hear each other and consider other viewpoints, plus taking regular ‘temperature checks’ on people’s positions, can lead to improvements to a proposal and/or people’s positions shifting.

A decision by consensus is subtly different from one for which you are seeking consent. The difference is in the process. In consensus, time and care is taken to work out an optimal solution (proposal) which maximises preference and minimises tolerance.

We use a consensus process for decisions that affect everyone where the decision may be high risk and/or irreversible; it’s not safe to fail. Building a consensus can take time, but it delivers more than just a collective decision. It builds trust, understanding and a sense of commitment to our co-operative project. That’s why we’re using this approach to work up a new recruitment strategy for the co-op.

Advice (or Listen, then Act)

In the advice process decision-makers seek input from knowledgeable or affected parties. Input must be listened to and acknowledged, but does not need to be adhered to. The person (or persons) making the decision, based on the advice received, are then accountable for it.

We use the advice process when a subset of the group is affected, or particular expertise is needed to inform the decision. The decision should be safe to fail, and if it does we reflect on why. We also use the advice process if a decision needs to be made fairly quickly but is reversible.

After working on our decision-making processes together for some time, we realised that prioritising our decisions was still a challenge for us. We could spend all our time efficiently deciding how to improve people’s working environments, while big decisions about strategy and staffing fell by the wayside. A small group took on the work of creating a new experimental process for collective prioritisation. They did that by listening to advice from all who had opinions on the issue. We have more to say on our prioritisation work in a follow-up post.

Mandates

A mandate isn’t a decision-making process in itself — it’s more like a meta-decision. It means we’ve decided to grant permission to an individual or specific group to make decisions within a predefined scope or parameters.

Mandates are different from the other three mechanisms listed below, as it’s about who makes the decision, rather than how a decision is made. For example, our co-operative could give our finance working group the mandate to make decisions about opening new bank accounts. The finance group could then use one of the three advice processes below to make decisions about how to do this.

We use mandates for low-risk decisions that may not affect everyone. We use them to get things decided fast, or where expertise lies with a few, trusted individuals. Ideally, mandated decisions are safe to fail or reversible.

Finally

The mechanisms outlined above aren’t set in stone — it’s a constant process of learning what we need from these mechanisms, and how to use them better or combine them.

We’ve learned, for instance, that the advice mechanism paired with a mandate is a good way of moving something on that would otherwise bog down the entire co-op. For example, the co-op gave a small group the mandate to come up with a permissive and experimental ‘small purchases policy’. The group made use of the advice process to draw on the experience of the finance working group, but also to engage anyone who was particularly interested in (or affected by) the new policy. The eventual policy was trialled for six months then adopted.

Developing these approaches takes time and energy, but we’re finding that as we understand how to use them they require less headspace. For us, the benefits of transparent decision making processes are worth this cost.

We’ll be writing more on how clarity on decision making mechanisms has led us to develop a better prioritisation process, a guiding strategy and — also — how we think these mechanisms can be used in data standards design and governance.