Article 24
Alternatives to Vertical Relating and Control- Part 2
by Wendell Krossa
(From the series "Creating A Horizontal God", Copyright, W. Krossa)

Seven Steps

While Iannello gives general principles for more human decision making processes, Boothroyd provides a highly practical and detailed step by step method for human cooperation or relating, decision making, and problem solving (Peter Boothroyd. 1991. "Developing Community Planning Skills: Applications of a Seven Step Model" in CHS Research Bulletin, University of British Columbia). This method can be used in a wide variety of situations and it is included to show more skeptical and pragmatic types that truly egalitarian cooperation is not only possible but also can also be very efficient in modern technical society.

 

His model is a good example of the possibility of humans working together to solve complex problems in a manner that is efficient and productive while at the same time maintaining freedom, personal responsibility, and control over important issues affecting the people involved. It helps show that a truly human and egalitarian relating is possible in modern complex society.

 

We continue to emphasize the issue of efficiency because of its importance in modern competitive society and because of the conventional belief that efficiency can only be maximized in command and control environments. We would respond to the anthropology professor, who once asked if it was possible to operate noncontrolling egalitarian relationships in modern technological society oriented to efficiency, with a resounding yes. And not only is research is finding conclusively that such relationships are efficient, but they are also very healthy for the groups and organizations that employ them. Morale is improved and this results in less turnover with its expensive retraining costs, and long-term performance in thereby improved.

 

Take The Seven Steps Lightly

Peter Boothroyd's model uses basic principles of decision making and group cooperation that can be found in any good textbook on business administration or decision making.

 

Do not feel overwhelmed by the following method of decision making. Most groups of people simply get together with a list of items and then throw ideas around in often ad hoc discussion until they arrive at an acceptable decision that all can live with. That ad hocism approach to decision making enables people to accomplish tasks efficiently enough to meet their organizational goals. Their group is able to get their work done and the world keeps turning. Life goes on just fine.

 

This seven step method is probably more useful in regard to more consequential decisions where a more thorough process of analysis may be required. But having said that, I am reminded of a business researcher who found that many high level corporate decisions with far reaching consequences were often made on a whim or flight of personal fancy with little research or analysis being done.

 

Much human endeavor proceeds according to ad hocism or muddling through.

 

It is a good reminder that in spite of the common pretense of being rational, many organizational people still operate by gut feeling or instinct. This is true at all levels of our social institutions. It is also true in this regard, that many important scientific discoveries were the result of intuition or gut feeling. Later, of course, to continue the pretense of ordered rationality, many discoveries were written up to give the appearance of being the result of rational scientific processes.

 

Lets not kid ourselves. Inspite of the ongoing effort of formal science and organizational theory to discredit emotion and intuition as irrational and therefore not acceptable vehicles for knowing truth or operating organizational life, as human beings we are essentially emotional beings and intuition and emotion are acceptable ways of perceiving reality and operating in life.

 

In saying this, I am not arguing for irrationality in opposition to rationality. This is more of a reference to Karen Armstrong's point in A History Of God regarding the Greek passion for logic and reason which the West inherited. This emphasis on rationality has resulted in a depreciation of intuition, imagination, and feeling as irrational, instead of valuing these emotional elements as simply nonrational (i.e. simply different from rational processes) but important in their own right.

 

Boothroyd introduces his planning process by stating that it "pays particular attention to the dynamics of collective deliberation within communities" (Ibid, p.1). It is a process designed to bring planning or decision making more under community control while "increasing the community's effectiveness in defining and reaching goals" (p.2).

 

It is also a process designed to help people plan effectively in environments characterized by increasing change, complexity, and conflict. Most importantly, says Boothroyd, it is a process that makes planning easily accessible and useable by nonprofessionals.

 

The model consists of the following seven steps:

 

1. First define your planning task. A lot of time is wasted in meetings because people are not clear as to what it is that they are doing. To avoid this confusion, says Boothroyd, urge people in a group to define what exactly they are going to plan, how they are going to plan it (the process), when, and by whom. The task of the group must be made clear and every person involved in the planning process must agree that it is indeed the task for that particular planning process. The agreed on task always remains open to revision.

 

Boothroyd's process is recursive, which simply means that the group may use the seven steps to plan the solution to a problem or they may step back and use the seven steps to first plan a process for planning the solution. At any point along the way the group may use the seven steps to solve some issue that arises. The process is recursive in that you may go back as far as necessary and use the seven steps to prepare for another stage or level in the process.

 

For instance, the group may want to plan for what Boothroyd calls a substantive task or goal such as a plan to build something. But they may discover that they do not have the information to plan for their building. They might stop, then, says Boothroyd, and go back to planning how to plan a process to approach their task of building. It may be necessary to do this, for instance, to ensure that the right people are involved and the right information is included in the planning. In doing so, they are moving from a substantive to a process task.

 

2. The second step involves identifying goals. This means that members of the group identify personal goals- what each person in the group is trying to achieve. This stage does not require the setting of goals, says Boothroyd, as people are only identifying what they expect for what is being planned.

 

Boothroyd says that while other models urge unanimity in setting goals at this stage, his model accepts goal variety and conflict as inevitable in community planning and decision making.

 

At this stage, members are uncritically voicing personal goals and are not yet concerned about consensus. Later, tradeoffs will be made, says Boothroyd, and win-win solutions will be sought that try to incorporate personal goals.

 

Also, other models combine steps one and two, which according to Boothroyd, confuses process goals with substantive goals. Boothroyd also points out that goals and objectives are not distinguished in his model.

 

3. Step three involves appraising the relevant facts that will assist the group in getting to their goal. The relevant facts may be noted in terms of internal strengths and weaknesses or external opportunities and threats.

 

Other models, says Boothroyd, have factual analysis at step one and waste valuable time and resources because of the unfocused collection of information, without a clear task.

 

4. This fourth step consists of generating possible solutions or courses of action. Members are to creatively think of solutions using any variety of techniques such as brainstorming. This is simply group members throwing out any relevant ideas that come to mind.

 

Boothroyd encourages groups to avoid defensive debate over personal ideas and to move more toward reflective, objective planning where members can offer ideas without feeling criticized or pressed to defend their ideas. A noncritical environment is important for this stage to proceed properly. Members should try to come up with as many ideas as possible without criticizing any suggestions.

 

5. Step five involves clarifying the possible choices suggested above. This consists of organizing ideas into categories of compatible and mutually exclusive options.

 

Boothroyd says that the point of step five is "to reduce the chaos of step four into a manageable set of choices which have to be made" (p.6). It is possible in other models to eliminate step five if possibilities in step four are organized into options in that step.

 

6. Here the group is encouraged to assess the advantages and disadvantages of each option from steps four and five. A simple listing of pros and cons is an effective technique for completing this step.

 

7. Finally, the group must make a decision to act. This is the making of a choice to adopt or recommend one of the options from steps four and five. Here, a wide variety of "culturally appropriate procedures" (p.6) may be used. These include voting, consensus, or leadership decisions among others. The decisions made at step seven may lead to direct implementation or they may point to the need for further planning to implement decisions.

 

The above model, says Boothroyd, "encourages reflection at each step to determine whether the planning group needs to back up or not. The point of the sequence of steps is not to straitjacket discussion but to provide some clarity about the direction of the discussion and to help people relax in the knowledge the discussion is leading to a decision even though it seems open-ended within a step" (p.6).

 

Boothroyd's model also emphasizes that the group members are responsible for monitoring and evaluating the implementation of the decision they have made. To assist implementation, he encourages the use of a simple bar chart which shows the breakdown of subtasks, their timing, and the persons responsible.

 

Also, part of the process is to encourage learning from inevitable mistakes. This is part of a doing/learning approach. You plan and implement, says Boothroyd, and then evaluate in order to learn from your efforts.

 

Buying In

Though not formally listed in the above material on the seven step method, Boothroyd encourages other things as integral to the process. For instance, rotating facilitators or leaders are used throughout the process to moderate discussion and write summaries on easily viewable flip charts. The process, in this manner, is not controlled by any one person or by only a few persons.

 

Everyone takes responsibility at all times for the process. If you assign one person to facilitate, says Boothroyd, then others tend to relax and shirk responsibility. There must be ongoing effort made to ensure that it is genuinely a group process and decision.

 

This is all part of the effort to help each member feel they have a vital part, that they have personal control. People will then feel the outcome of the process is their decision and they will be more supportive of the outcome and its consequences. Whenever people feel listened to and consulted, they then feel that the process is genuinely theirs. Consequently, they "will buy into and will be motivated to follow through" (Peter Boothroyd. 1992. Lecture at School of Planning, Sept. 18, University of British Columbia).

 

Boothroyd argues that the feeling about the process is crucial to create solidarity. Members feelings about being in control are a vital part of being truly human and being responsible for their own lives. Planning, according to Boothroyd, must involve people in creating their own future.

 

It is also important that people support the outcomes of processes because vast amounts of time and resources are wasted in meetings and processes which lead to decisions which are never implemented or which are not monitored and evaluated. This is often due to the fact that decisions were handed down to people who do not feel a part of the decision and are therefore naturally reluctant to fully support the outcome.

 

Also, to encourage a feeling of true control, Boothroyd argues that decisions must be genuinely bottomup in the sense that they are initiated by and originate in every way from the bottom. They must not be ideas passed down from above.

 

Countercoercion

In regard to handing down decisions to inferiors, Kipnis notes that "the use of even moderate power... stimulates opposition everywhere, as far as we can see. Human nature generally answers external coercion with a countercoercion" (David Kipnis. 1976. The Powerholders, p.80). The use of coercion inevitably generates resistance in those being forced. Parents and leaders in any situation, take note. Also, remember the whole communist experiment ( as well as other dictatorships) and how its coercion produced widespread countercoercion which eventually led to the collapse of communist regimes.

 

Understanding this basic fact of human nature would save organizations immense resources of time and energy. By simply respecting people as true human beings and letting them make their own decisions regarding things that affect their work and lives, institutions would find people more willing to support outcomes of decision making processes. With such respect of basic humanity, morale improves, turnover decreases, and productivity improves. Everyone benefits.

 

This is the paradox of bottomup planning. Instead of irresponsible chaos, people will support more readily and take more responsibility for decisions that they feel to be genuinely their own. And conversely, people will resist and undermine decisions imposed on them by others.

 

By way of example, in the organization I work for, a directive was sent to a number of us involved in a certain process. Without prior consultation, we were told that we would be using an entirely different operating procedure from that time on. This directive came with insulting warnings of punishment for those who would not comply. Quite spontaneously, those of us involved in the process resisted the new procedure and after a few weeks it died simply from neglect.

 

A few weeks later, a new memo arrived from head office. This time the language was much more humble and conciliatory. The memo requested input from those of us involved in the process as to what we would like to see implemented in the operating procedure. We choose to continue the old procedure which was working just fine.

 

Head office could have saved time, money, and a lot of wasted goodwill by simply coming in the first place to those of us involved and requesting our input instead of trying to coerce and control us. That only backfired, as it inevitably will, and produced intense resistance.

 

It was a vivid example of the inefficiency of hierarchical domination and control.

 

Trying to motivate people by threat may get some response in the short term but it will inevitably fail in the long term and produce resentment and backlash. This will undermine programs and it is very inefficient in regard to long-term performance.

 

Instead of the above coercing approach toward others, create a culture of respect for the freedom of others and enhance human relationships with common decency. Remember that free cooperation should govern all human relating. Develop a culture that encourages and enhances such free cooperation.

 

In small ways try to smooth human relating by doing such decently human things as asking for assistance on tasks rather than commanding or coercing by threat. A "Could you please help me" invitation is much more palatable than a "Do this" or "Do that" command. Remember the entertainer who said, "I hate being told what to do". Rather than being a peevish response to coercion, she was expressing a profoundly human response to control. And remember, God inspires and invites but never coerces or commands. Would you want someone telling you what to do? Exercising authority or power over others is very humiliating and demeaning to the subordinate person and engenders dehumanizing powerlessness with all its devastating consequences. Treat others the same way you would want them to treat you.

 

We include this seemingly marginal point because it is so consistently violated by powerholders and it ruins so many relationships in groups. Powerholders too often appeal to institutional authority (the power of their position and the law system supporting it) and thereby manage through coercion and threat. This approach humiliates those at the receiving end of such domination and destroys any possibility for the operation of healthy human relating which must be based on free cooperation. It also creates resistance to decisions handed down by the powerholder.

 

Becoming a manager or supervisor does not give anyone the right to control others, to make decisions for others, or to command or order others about.

 

Rather than commanding or coercing by threat, a much better approach is to explain what needs to be done on some task or project and then let all the people involved decide who will do what and how they will do it. Let the people involved take full responsibility to make all the decisions on the details of the task or project. Show respect for people by giving them full control over programs. And include all of them as genuine equals. Certainly, it is helpful to provide guidelines from past similar projects or programs, but these should never be in the form of fixed sets of laws or rules. Let the people involved operate freely and change whatever they see fit to change. Only then will they fully support and implement those programs.

 

Encourage group members to work for consensus (win/win) outcomes. This is the best way to seek the free cooperation which must be the guiding principle for all group processes. If you do not seek such free cooperation then you are violating the basic human need for personal control, responsibility, and the need for free response. You are instead getting coerced response which will inevitably produce backlash and waste organization time, resources, and goodwill. Such backlash undermines cooperation and creates ongoing conflict between hierarchical strata (bosses/workers). It is an organizational dead-end. Any approach which uses threat or coercion humiliates people and engenders countercoercion which undermines successful implementation of tasks.

 

The reason people respond to coercion with countercoercion is because coercion violates basic human nature as free and oriented to true equality in relating with all others. Coercion violates the sense of equality that defines our essential humanity and it violates the freedom to respond as uniquely human without pressure or force.

 

Returning to Boothroyd's seven step method, at every stage of the process it is important to encourage mutual respect and listening. This is the noncritical approach to discussion that we mentioned earlier. This approach will lessen defensiveness and time and energy wasted on defense.

 

Throughout the process, an attitude of working for consensus should be encouraged where it is necessary. But the need for consensus should always be questioned and challenged. Is it really necessary to arrive at a consensus on many issues? In saying this, we are trying to avoid excessive uniformizing and controlling of life. We are already over-organized and over-regulated and we certainly do not need more organizing which often leads to more suffocating control. As Rushdie said, we already have "Rules, rules, rules about every damn thing" (Salman Rushdie quoted in Quest, Essay 1, 1989, p.3).

 

There should be ongoing evaluation as to which issues really require some sort of consensus or cooperative effort and to what degree consensus is needed and for how long. Many things now regulated could be left to personal discretion and this would help preserve diversity and freedom in communities and groups.

 

There are far too many controlling people demanding agreement and legislation to enforce such agreement on too many issues. It all smacks of bald-faced control. A lot of regulated issues could be left to personal discretion and thereby preserve the freedom for diverse human approach or response to those issues.

 

Ambiguity Is All Right

Often, decision making or planning processes do not result in a consensus or a clear decision which can be implemented. Boothroyd suggests that their are times when we must simply learn to live with ambiguity. But ambiguity may be more of a problem for those people who demand too much organization, regulation, and control of life.

 

Ambiguity- not arriving at clear decisions or consensus- may often be a more human outcome which results from free and diverse humans not wanting to be excessively controlled on some issue, especially if agreement on the issue is not really necessary. The option to not find consensus or to not arrive at a decision may cost more in terms of reduplication but the preservation of more freedom may be worth the extra cost.

 

Also worth noting is the reality that decision making processes are quite often influenced by the presence of individuals who impatiently want to rush the process along to a quick, final decision. These people will try to railroad decisions through, usually decisions favoring some viewpoint they hold which they feel is right for everyone else in the group.

 

The effort to hurry the process along may appear on the surface to enhance efficiency, at least in the short term, but it usually proves to be very inefficient because, as we noted above, decisions forced on people will not be supported wholeheartedly by those people. The railroading approach only produces countercoercion with its inevitable resentment and footdragging which can eventually lead to the collapse of the implementation of the decision.

 

It may sometimes be slower and messier to treat people as fully responsible humans in a truly egalitarian and noncontrolling manner, but it is an approach that is more certain to ensure the full support from the people involved. When people feel genuinely in control, when they feel a process and decision is genuinely theirs, then they are more inclined to support the outcome and its implementation. They are more willing to take full responsibility for the decision and its consequences. This is especially true if evaluation and monitoring are also under their control.

 

While efficiency and other concerns are valid arguments regarding enhancing decision making processes, the dominant concern must always be what is the human thing to do. Efficiency alone should never be the dominant concern, but rather freedom, space for reflection, uncoerced choice, personal control, and responsibility for one's own life and destiny. These are the dominant values that must operate in relation to decision making processes regarding the critical issues affecting our lives and destinies. We are humans on our way toward becoming more human and we must have processes and structures which support our development as true human beings in all of the life situations that we encounter, especially in the workplace which has such profound effect on the rest of our lives.

 

Growing Grassroots Anger

As we have noted often before, to become fully and truly human, it is essential that people gain full control over the important decisions affecting their lives. True human freedom demands that humans must have full personal responsibility for decision making processes that affect them.

 

States and many other organizations have consistently refused to allow such control to be placed in the hands of citizens. States have always been hierarchical systems of domination with critical decision making power reserved for the elite few at the top. This arrangement of power has been dehumanizing for the many powerless people in the lower strata of such systems.

 

But growing human awareness is now reaching the point where these hierarchically controlled arrangements will no longer be tolerated. We see this growing intolerance of control now being expressed in a worldwide grassroots dissatisfaction and anger toward governments and institutions at all levels.

 

While numerous efforts at reform over the centuries have resulted in increased freedoms in our states and organizations, too often such reform measures have been only tokenism and placation. There has been little genuine empowerment of people at the bottom. It is now time to make some radical changes as we move into a new millennium.

 

New models of organizing and new forms of community cooperation are constantly emerging. These experiments show us that a more human social order and existence is possible. It is possible for grassroots people to control critical decision making processes and to do so efficiently and productively.

 

Boothroyd's model, in particular, represents the type of process which can be a very useful tool for assisting more truly human relating as equals. It is a valuable tool for encouraging a more horizontal approach to cooperative efforts in communities. It is a model which is applicable to a wide variety of decision making situations at all levels. Boothroyd also believes it is more efficient and practical than other more hierarchically oriented models.

 

Before closing this section we also want to note the example of Germany where a consensus model of governance operates widely throughout the state. In the German model, cooperation is encouraged between political parties, federal and local governments, and between trade unions and corporate bosses. By law, employees hold half of the seats on the supervisory boards of large companies. These boards are responsible in particular for such critical decisions as the hiring of managers. Consensus on such decisions is encouraged throughout the political and economic systems of the country.

 

Even though re-unification has brought some problems, the German system has worked well for decades and shows it is possible for such forms of shared power and control to work well in modern industrial societies.

 

The models noted above, and other similar experiments, provide us with means for practically implementing the essential features for true human existence. They provide the necessary framework for a more human social order and they provide sufficient evidence that such a horizontal social order can function efficiently.

 

But these ideas and models must never become a fixed or final blueprint for the future because a human future is always free and wide open to infinite possibilities for exploration and creativity. We humans have a tendency to institutionalize our successful responses and processes and then to freeze around them as permanent solutions. This leads to a finality and a loss of the flexibility that is so essential to support true human development in process. This is also exactly how a law oriented existence is created and expanded. Laws are simply the frozen, rigid, and sacralized responses of rule oriented people to situations in life.

 

Again, the above models are only examples of possible trajectories that can be experimented with in the search for new processes to assist human relating in a more human social order. They should be viewed as only temporary tools to help communities gain experience to create, experiment, and explore in their own unique ways for the changing situations they will face. Making any model into a fixed blueprint or policy will violate the essential nature of life as open, free, spontaneous, and changing process.

 

 

There is now a growing imperative to find better structures for human relating and cooperation as the realization grows that contemporary vertically oriented forms of organization are simply too destructive to human well-being.

 

It may be very difficult for us to think of life outside of organizations or institutions, but it can be done. It is not necessary to create an organization every time there is need to cooperate on some task. There are more flexible and efficient forms of cooperation such as open processes which can radically change direction as new tasks arise or adjust for new people as needed. Processes can also be allowed to die if they have served their purpose. There is no need to maintain the process as if it were an object deserving servitude and loyalty.

 

This raises another point in regard to states and other institutions or organizations- their demand of loyalty from their members. This is another feature of contemporary social institutions which distorts and destroys true human response and existence. The demand of loyalty is all part of the effort to control people and keep them subservient to the hierarchical order. It exploits people's sense of cooperation and of belonging to community and it focuses an excessive respect on the structure or tool which should only exist to serve people and not become an exalted object served by people.

 

Loyalty to organizations ultimately sets people against each other as they are coerced into finding their identity in some state or institution which controls a limited segment of the human race and encompasses only limited ideas and practices. This leads to alienation, conflict and even war among people loyal to different states. People will die for their loyalty to some institution not realizing that our loyalty should belong to all human beings, to all life, and to the entire world. We must not allow our loyalty to be exploited to serve only the structures and the interests of dominating elites who may simply want to preserve some contemporary hierarchical power structure for their own advantage.

 

Ultimately, if we are ever to have a more human social order we will need new views of a more human God. Human beings demand a sense of God to live by. A view God is essential to support worldviews and social orders. But we need more human views of God to support more human worldviews. These in turn will support more human social orders. Fortunately, the great reality that is God, is human.

 From the series 'Taking The Vertical Out Of God'
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