Concept Seven
"All members of a service body bear
substantial responsibility for that body's decisions and should
be allowed to fully participate in its decision-making
processes."
The Seventh concept teaches us that all members of our
service teams should truly participate in the teams’
decision-making processes.
The Seventh concept teaches us that all members of our
service teams should truly participate in the teams’
decision-making processes.
The Seventh concept teaches us that all members of our
service teams should truly participate in the teams’
decision-making processes.
All contributions count, and maximum involvement yields
sound, sensitive service decisions. We welcome the Sixth
Concept’s idea that individual consciences combine and interact
to form a collective group conscience.
When applied conscientiously, the seventh concept tends to
equalize each contributing voice in relation to the whole. The
seventh concept also points out the reason we encourage full
participation in our decision-making processes; it is because
each person who helps make the committee’s collective decision
on some issue bears substantial responsibility for his and her
individual decisions.
Full participation in discussion is essential to good
decision-making. If a committee discovers that full discussion
is frequently limited due to time constraints, it may wish to
consider changing the length or the frequency of its meetings.
Full discussion, of course, does not mean unlimited
discussion with several members speaking repeatedly during the
discussion. The chairperson may need to implement discussion
tools to help manage the meeting. Some of these tools including
limiting the number of pros and cons which may be discussed on
each issue; calling on each individual only once or twice during
each discussion; or limiting the time any one individual may
speak on a particular issue. If any of these methods is used, it
must be consistently implemented to ensure fairness, and so that
each person present understands the committee’s protocol for
equitable participation.
Although full participation does not necessarily mean that
each person in the room is permitted a vote, a committee’s
voting procedures should always be clearly stated, perhaps in
its guidelines. Being inclusive, however, is always preferable
to being exclusive. Committees often work by consensus and vote
only when consensus is not reached." |
