Author: Terence

I am a Minister of the Uniting Church in Australia. My current ministries focus on consultancy and teaching about consensus based decision-making, mediation, governance training and professional supervision for Ministers. I am co-author of the book "The Church Guide For Making Decisions Together". I live on the beautiful Far South Coast of NSW from where I undertake ministry across the globe. Contact me at terence@makingchurchdecisions.com

7 things that help meetings work well

Meetings need more than luck

If you want to get good decisions then you can’t just wing it. Preparation is critical. Planning for a meeting also means getting your mindset right. So think about how to embed high quality values into your meetings. Also think about the behviors that express these high quality values.

In this post you are invited to think about 7 values or commitments that help a meeting to work well. Then put in place practices that support those values.

How to use this worksheet

In the first column is a practice that will help your meetings work better. In the second column is an example, or two, of specific things that you can encourage in your people and meeting practices that bring that value to life.

In the third column you can write “yes” or “no” to indicate if you  encourage or do these things in your meetings. If you answer “no” then in the fourth column make a note of what you can do to support these actions / practices in your meetings.

Mettings Best Practice Worksheet

Best Practice Actions in support Yes/No What to do better
Address issues in a transparent and direct manner

 

 Invite people to talk about feelings and hopes

 

    
Focus on interests not positions  Ask what is really important    
Generate options for mutual gain Work for a win-win approach

Let people talk Think of ideas that benefit both

    
 Assure fair process Make sure everyone knows the rules    
Practice direct communication Talk with others, not about them

Use “I” & not “you” statements

Talk about feelings and what’s important to you

    
 Take a break If you get stuck put the business aside for a while

If emotions rise pause for prayer

    
 Work at relationships Apologize

Forgive

Try hard to understand the other’s point of view

    

Conclusion

Your attitude as a leader or group member is  essential for the success of your meetings. I encourage you to grow in your sensitivity to what makes for healthy meetings. This checklist (and I’m sure you can add more values) is one way to do this. When you have done the worksheet include it as part of your Council or Committee’s anual assessment of its performance as a decision-making group.

 

Healthy Churches and Football

Healthy Churches and Football

Healthy churches remind me of football teams. Last weekend here in Australia the grandfinals were played in two major football codes. Well done Sydney City (NRL) and West Coast Eagles (AFL)! The analysis of why one side won and the other lost will continue for some time. The answers have a lot in common with why some churches are healthy and others are not healthy churches.

Here at Making Church Decisions we are very passionate about the importance of using consensus decision making. We know that this approach makes it possible to create healthy and effective churches for mission. But we also know that we can teach all the “rules” for running a connsensus building approach but that just isn’t enough for your success!!

Both teams in the football grandfinals knew the rules. Both teams had the same number of players and followed very similar tactics. Yet one side was victorious and the other was defeated. Therefore it is clear that knowing the rules and the playbook doesn’t guarantee that you will succeed!!

Successful Football Teams

The successful grandfinalists have a lot in common with churches that succeed in applying consensus discernment. The successful teams had these features:

  • players who just kept improving – never settling for the standard they had reached up to that time. In physical fitness and skills  they were “fit for purpose”
  • they played as a team and not a collection of “star” individuals
  • there was a captain and/or play makers who people trusted and followed, playing their part in response to that leadership
  • one or two sets of players who just “clicked” as a unit – partners who together were better than each one on their own
  • the coach had a plan and the team consistently put it into practice
  • creativity – they saw opportunities and took hold of them. It’s like they made something out of nothing.

Successful – Healthy – Churches

Healthy churches are essential for the effective implementation of consensus discernment. So, here are six supports for healthy churches. They have an amazing similarity to how to be a successful sporting team!

  1. Growing in Discipleship: mature disciples behave in mature ways. So churches need to never let their members settle for where they are in their discipleship. Leaders need to challenge people to constantly recognise their growth points and help them to achieve them. Consensus decision makers need to be “fit for purpose”.
  2. Fostering Healthy Relationships: healthy churches are not a collection of individual stars – and that includes the Minister / Pastor too!! Healthy churches know that to play as a team they have to make good relationships possible. So learn how to apologise, to forgive, to listen carefully and empathetically and to speak with care and respect. These are essential.
  3. Providing Strong Leadership: organizations need leaders. They also need people who will welcome that leadership and work with it in hopeful and expectant ways.
  4. Building Respectful Partnerships: help people to collaborate. Create environments that encourage partnerships and allow people to play to their strengths.
  5. Following a Clear Decision-Making Process: when people don’t know how and why things happen then it undermines teamwork. When using consensus discernment people need to know the game plan. They need to understand the process and how it gets to a decision point. Knowing the rules only makes sense if we know how they come together into an effective plan.
  6. Be open to Transformative Change: God doesn’t always work in with our strategic plan. Sometimes there are opportunities that just open up  in unexpected ways – and we have to take them. The whole process of consensus discernment assumes that God will show us something that we haven’t thought of yet. Therefore the churches that are best equiped to use it are those who know how to do transformative change – who know how to spontaneously create something.

Conclusion

The practices and tools of consensus discernment can be learned by anyone. Any group can use them – it isn’t that hard. But like knowing the rules of a game it doesn’t mean that you will be any good when it comes time to use them.

In order to be effective in using consensus discernment tools churches need to be healthy churches. So grow the quality of your discipleship and relationships. Honour and work with yor leaders, build partnerships, teach and follow good process and expect and delight in transformative change.

Violence and disagreement

Violence as a response to disagreement

What’s wrong with this picture?!!

Apparently in US political discourse it is fine to point a gun to show that you don’t like something! A US Senator is running this advertisement. In it he shoots at a document that represents the views of his political opponents.

There are too many people who think that the way to oppose something is to be violent towards it. The symbolism in this advertisement says that this is OK. It doesn’t matter what your politics, or views on a subject, violence is always wrong!

It is both apalling and alarming that a sitting US Senator thinks that it is OK to use the symbolism of violence and death as a way to express dissent. There is no pleasure to see that 2,925 people love that post. That is thousands of people shouting their approval for shooting first and asking questions later (maybe skip the questions bit). Tragic, distressing and unacceptable.

Blessed are the Peacemakers (Matthew 5:9)

The children of God are peacemakers. The children of God

  • seek reconcilliation,
  • offer and seek forgiveness
  • strengthen the chords that bind
  • never lose sight of the fact that God loves those that we might want to hate
  • resist the  accepted norms of violence and oppression in society.

In churches around the world there are people who think it is OK to injure others, to lie about and demean their opponents, who cheat, harm and use their power to win battles over their opponents. Shame! Such people can never claim to be the children of God.

Violence and Consensus Building

It is the aggressive behaviour of people in the churches that is the greatest encouragement to finding a new way of making decisions. At the same time it is the violent / aggressive behaviour of opponents to consensus based discernment that is one of the greatest obstacles to its introduction.

Consensus based discernment is counter cultural in most places. To move to it in our churches calls for courageous leaders who denounce the abuse, intimidation and aggression that passes for “robust debate” in too many churches today.

The Senator’s advertisement seeks to make  a culture of violence normal, acceptable, to be expected. In too many churches the way disagreements are handled seeks to make  a culture of violence normal, acceptable, to be expected. We must stop making violence seem normal!

Prophetic courage is needed

It is time for all the peace-making children of God to stand up against violence in the church (and anywhere they see it). Speak a powerful word of hope that there is a better way to be in communnity around difficult conversations. Offer the vision of consensus building discernment as an alternative world view to the one that normalizes violence.

But be warned! Matthew 5:11 & 12 may happen to you if you are a prophet of hope. “Happy are you when people insult you and harass you and speak all kinds of bad and false things about you, all because of me. Be full of joy and be glad, because you have a great reward in heaven. In the same way, people harassed the prophets who came before you.”

Negotiation & Consensus: Getting to Yes

Common concerns

Negotiation principles are widely applied in many different contexts. What about consensus building appraoches to grooup decision-making? One frequent objection to consensus based decision-making is that it is a new fangled idea that has no track record of success. Some of the ways that this is expressed include:

  • the whole idea is a wishy washy approach that doesn’t work in real life
  • leads to lowest common denominator outcomes
  • it’s all about making a compromise – lose / lose
  • it lacks robust engagement
  • no one uses consensus-building – because it doesn’t work

Negotiation as a conflict resolving tool

For centuries people, businesses and countries have negotiated their way through disagreements. They have used different techniques. Among them have been:

  • threats – if you don’t do what I want then I will make you suffer
  • power – if we don’t agree  then I will use my power to get what I want
  • compromise – each party gives up something to get a bit of what they want
  • interest based negotiation – each seeks to meet the goals of both sides

In the last 50 years or so the the most widely used and effective form of negotiation has been “interest based negotiation”. The classic book on this subject is Getting to Yes: negotiating an agreement without giving in by Roger Fisher and William Ury. It was first published in 1982 and has sold millions of copies through many reprints since then.

Interest based negotiation, sometimes called principled negotiation, is well summarised in the chapter headings of Getting to Yes.

Don’t bargain over positions

When people enter into a dispute they usually start by focusing on what they want out of the situation. That is a position. For example: A couple arguing that only $X is available for a new car. Or “We need to cut the church budget to cope with increasing costs.”

The reason there is a conflict is because the outomes – or positions as they are called – held by the parties are different. Both sides can’t get what they want if they focus on a position.

Instead the focus should be on the things that are most important to the parties – the true goal stripped of the particularity of a position. What is the true interest. For example: “We have only a limited family budget and I don’t want to upset my partner who has other priorities instead of a car.” Or “I’m concerned that the church reserves are going down under my watch as Treasurer.”

These are interests. The deeper need / agenda that is hidden behind the positions of the price to be paid for a car or a focus on budget cuts. By identifying interests and starting the conversation there it is possible to have a very different conversation about options that meet those needs.

Method in interest based negotiations

Separate the people from the problem. Don’t make the dispute personal. See the other party as someone who has legitimate interests and – like you – is trying to have them met. Do not treat them as an enemy. Work with them as a partner in finding a solution that works for both of you.

Foucs on interests not positions. As noted above there is usually more room for conversation around interests than there is about positions. If the argument is about the price of something then there are only so many points to make. However if the discussion also includes ongoing relationships, total family budget, and priorities in the budget then that can be a lot to talk about!

Invent options for mutual gain. The classic “rule” in negotiations is to give something to the other party that is of the highest value to them and the lowest cost to you. As interests are identified and owned it is possible to see what matters most to the parties. By taking a collaborative approach it is possible to create offers that are great gains for the other side but are not a great cost to you. For example: I may be very happy to give up my Friday  pizza and beer night for a year and put that towards the cost of car repayments. After all I was considering going on a diet anyway!

Insist on using objective criteria. Participants in disputes often become very emotive, or base decisions on their understanding of the data. By insisting on “checking the facts” through an objective mechanism some of this emotion can be moderated. When everyone can agree on the data it makes it much easier to find common ground. Negotiations have to be based on reality.

Negotiation and Consensus

If you are familiar with consensus building, as we have presented in our book (The Church Guide For Making Decisions Together) and blog posts, you will immediately see the similarities between negotiation and consensus based discernment. I will not highlight them again here.

The common ground between negotiation and consensus building is huge! In fact consensus building can be considered as interest based negotiation for groups.

If anyone tells you that consensus building discernment is just a fad that has no track record in real life – tell them they are wrong! Interest based negotiation is the standard for international diplomatic and trade negotiations. It is also the same approach that is used in interpersonal mediation. Consensus building discenment draws on the same principles and practices and locates them in the framework of Christian discipleship.

A consensus building approach to discernment is grounded in solid academic research and practical experience. If you want the best chance of creating lasting, owned and implemented decisions then you must use consensus building in your church.

 

 

World Methodist Council – 5 views on consensus

World Methodist Council (WMC) 2018

The  World Methodist Council is the governing  body of the world Methodist family. It met in Seoul Korea from July 12 – 15. The Steering Committee decided to provide training in consensus based decision making. They were convinced that the World Methodist Council needs a better way to conduct their business meetings.

The WMC wanted a process that would help them to be more respectful, inclusive and true to their Christian values. Terence Corkin and Julia Kuhn Wallace were invited to provide the training.

In the first session the principles and practices of a consensus based discernment process were presented. The content was tailored specifically to the World Methodist Council and showed how a consensus approach to meetings supported their values and goals as an organisation. Session two was a role play using a piece of business that was on the agenda.

Some participants were asked: What do you see as the potential for a consensus building approach in meetings? Here are there responses.

Gillian Kingston

Vice President of the WMC

I think it is an excellent methodology. There are concerns about how much time it can take but I think it is the way forward. The WMC should talk to the World Communion of Reformed Churches about their experience in moving in this direction. It will take longer and that may require an additional day for our meetings. It has a lot to offer.

Frank M Reid III

African Methodist Episcopal Church

The potential in consensus based decision making is extraordinary and necessary. One of the reasons that the church isn’t growing is because of the way that we treat people in meetings. We see people attend a meeting, get treated really badly and never return to church. The way we do meetings is one of the reasons that we can’t get millennials into leadership roles in the church.

David Jebb

Methodist Church in Britain

I find it clear. It encourages openness and genuine consultation which is very helpful.

Denny Nainggolan

Methodist Church in Indonesia

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I look at the culture in Indonesia and it is a place where we only ever hear from the older people and senior Ministers. The juniors, younger ones, then have to follow.  Using a consensus process helps people to find their voice. Older people need to change their way of thinking. This approach gives people the tools to help young people to speak in a respectful way.

Lasse Svensson

Uniting Church in Sweden

The experience of the WCRC

In July 2017 the World Communion of Reformed Churches implemented consensus discernment across every aspect of their meeting. We interviewed some people who were in Leipzig, Germany about their experience.

Where next for the WMC?

The Officers and Steering Committee of the WMC will receive a report on the feedback received after the training. Responses to the experience were strongly positive. The decision now has to be taken as to whether the WMC will introduce elements of a consensus building approach into the regular life of the Council when it meets again in 2021.