The Task Force on Governance used consent to reach decisions during our first formal meeting in June. this alternative to the ballot, or to voice votes, or to consensus seems to deserve continued use by our group, and a fuller explaination.

Consent has been used for nearly 25 years, mostly in Europe and chiefly in businesses by people who are determined to have a genuine voice in their working lives and who want responsibility for the outcome of their own decisions. In addition, according to Roger F. Van Vlissingen, a leading advocate in America of consent decision-making, the method works particularly well in schools.

"The consent model is a complete, practical, and logical design for organizing any group of people with a common goal," Van Vlissingen says. "The gridlock of democratic institutions worldwide should make us very skeptical of the potential democracy holds as a method of workplace organization. The consent system provides an important breakthrough in organizational structure because decision making is driven by the quality of information and reasoning provided and cannot deteriorate into a meaningless voting of numbers and majority politics."

Consent rests on three principles:

• Consent: A decision is agreed to when no reasoned objection or argument is raised. Thus, the quality of reasoning carries the influential weight rather than the political mood of the moment, or the pressure of peers to vote one way or another. This way of making decisions has been used by committees, teams, work groups, boards of trustees.

• The Double Link: Should any group be unable to reach a decision, or if a decision demands the involvement of another group or department, then groups are represented at the next organizational by the group leader and one person chosen by the work group. This dual representation ensures an uninterrupted flow of information and communication throughout the organization. A few persons can no longer control vital information.

• Full Participation: Every person in the organization belongs to at least one work group, or committee, and group meetings are scheduled at least bimonthly.

In summary, this is Van Vlissingen's explaination of how consent works:

The use of ballots or voice votes to make operational, or policy, or strategic planning decisions allows a majority to overrule minority objections. Individuals or numerical minorities may have a valid point, but are more often than not, the worth of their objections only become evident when the majority's decision is implemented. Consent guarentees that any person can be heard, and can change a decision provided she or he offers facts to make the case. The committee or group is bound to deal with those objections.

"By placing this emphasis on the value of every individual," Van Vlissingen says, "the consent method instantly establishes a sense of individual self worth, which is an open invitiation for hidden talent to emerge."

By insisting that individuals state the reasoning and the facts which support their objections, consent decision making is, in itself, educative, both for individuals and groups. This alone should be an argument for adopting the method in a college or school. But there are additional benefits - consent can result in wiser decisions and quickly unmasks any hidden agendas.

Further, consent avoids stalemates common to consensus decision making, particularly where participants have little or no experience with the traditions of consensus. In the strictest terms and to be effective, when consensus is used, any voice raised against a decision can block taking the decision. In matters of theology, consensus works reasonably well, but where time is a factor, consensus can quickly deteriorate into win-lose votes, or autocratic decisions.

Work groups, or small committees, are the basic building block for consent decision making. They make all operational decisions. When decisions have to be taken in tandem with other work groups, the double link cuts down on the number of persons who feel they must be involved in meetings to make certain their point of view is heard. In the convential workplace, which includes colleges such as Goddard, many individuals want to be represented in most, if not all, decision making meetings, especially on budgets.

A pair of persons, one chosen by peers and the other for some special competency, always represents the work group. As individuals come to trust one another to make wise decisions, overly large meetings which take longer to reach decisions are reduced in size and time.

Departmental groups attended by only as many double-linked teams as necessary, make policy and strategy decision. The authority of every meeting level is defined by the board of trustees, or directors, in keeping with legal restrictions imposed by most, if not all, states. Thus, every meeting level makes any decisions within these predefined limits. This gives each group or department clear purpose and real authority. Since every persons is involved in at least one group, and every persons is represented at each departmental level, everyone is involved in management.

"The key experience that tends to bring about the change," Van Vlissingen says, "is the validation of the safety of every individual. Groups quickly find that better decisions are made by listening to objections that would not normally have been heard."

Additionally, if work groups or departmental groups, are not satisfied with their representation, one or both of the representatives can be changed, again by offering a reasoned objection. Finally, each work group or departmental is organized around three agenda questions: Making - what are we producing; Measuring - how well are we producing it; and Managing - allocating resources and improving on how we produce. [In the case of Goddard College, which offers an education for hard thinking and plain living, these ends can be measured, and managed.]

"The consent management," Van Vlissingen argues, "parcels out decision making and full ownership in the consequences of those decisions to every level. It means mandatory power sharing; the departmental meetings are management."