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#. 10. OBTAINING CONSENSUS <br />F- offend a sizable number of constituents. What does a legislator get out <br />of championing a proposal that only part of the community supports? <br />-_ Consensus Takes Too Long <br />You can make a decision fast by majority vote, but you may never be able <br />to implement the decision. Or the cost of implementation may be so high <br />that you'll wish you never got involved. <br />There's little doubt that it takes longer to build a consensus before making <br />rt a decision. The cost of making the decision will be higher. But the costs <br />resulting from the decision may be much lower. With a consensus, <br />implementation is usually much easier and less costly, because you don't <br />pay the costs of continued division within the community. On balance, <br />the costs to the community are usually much less. <br />Premises Behind Collaborative Problem Solving <br />The premises behind collaborative problem solving -- the process used to <br />build consensus decisions -- are: <br />• A solution exists (even though you don't know what it is now) that can <br />meet everybody's needs. <br />• You will find fundamental shared interests on which you can build. <br />• While there may be differences, people who disagree with you are not <br />adversaries or enemies. <br />• Everybody will get more of what they want if they work together. <br />Positio.nal Bargaining and Collaborative Problem Solving <br />One of the fundamental problems in talking about consensus is that <br />people immediately begin to think in terms of "bargaining" or <br />"compromise." This is because the mental image we have of consensus <br />is associated with one kind of negotiation, which is called "positional <br />bargaining." In positional bargaining, both sides start out by taking fixed <br />positions, sometimes described as "non- negotiable demands," which are <br />often accompanied by extensive rhetoric about the evil character of the <br />other side. Then both sides make a series of reciprocal concessions until <br />a compromise has been reached. Each side has to give up something in <br />From'. Pt-o Jrarrl For Cornnu,)rly PNb)rfn-$"1vi2� 1 19`2- 64 <br />