Building Consensus: The Art of Getting to YES
As facilitators, we are all typically charged with helping groups work together to create solutions that address issues, meet objectives, resolve problems, etc. One of the skills that is important to bring to the table is the ability to build consensus - even when the starting point appears to be significant disagreement. In our work at Leadership Strategies, we have found it helpful to think about disagreements in three levels. In addition, we employ five core consensus building strategies, depending upon the level of the disagreement.
Why do people disagree?
Our work with hundreds of groups over that past five years has led us to categorize disagreements into three basic categories. That is, people tend to disagree for one of three reasons generally; and more often than not, due to the first reason below:
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