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Unanimous consent small committees


mjhmjh

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I'm on a committee of 4 people that has been tasked with planning the program for an event. Since the committee is so small and we almost always agree on things, is it okay to just run on unanimous consent until someone disagrees with something and raises an objection? The parliamentary authority is RONR and no bylaws provision contradicts my plan.

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Yes, that's absolutely fine. There's two caveats with this approach though:

The first is that trying to always do business in an informal consent-based approach can lead to situations where people don't feel comfortable raising dissenting opinions. If one person feels like the other three agree, so they have to agree as well, it can be helpful to make it into a proper vote so that they have a chance to register their discontent. It's one thing if you use unanimous consent and people raise objections when appropriate; quite another when it ends up intimidating people into not raising their voices in opposition.

The second is that it is almost more important to make sure that any decisions you're making be properly phrased and that everyone understands what's being agreed to. I've seen too many meetings where people talk about something at length, someone says "Does that sound good?", everyone agrees that it does, indeed, sound good, and then every packs up and leaves with a slightly different understanding of what actually was agreed to. Sometimes this isn't so bad, but sometimes it can be disastrous ("No, I thought you were booking the venue!").

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3 minutes ago, Alexis Hunt said:

Yes, that's absolutely fine. There's two caveats with this approach though:

The first is that trying to always do business in an informal consent-based approach can lead to situations where people don't feel comfortable raising dissenting opinions. If one person feels like the other three agree, so they have to agree as well, it can be helpful to make it into a proper vote so that they have a chance to register their discontent. It's one thing if you use unanimous consent and people raise objections when appropriate; quite another when it ends up intimidating people into not raising their voices in opposition.

The second is that it is almost more important to make sure that any decisions you're making be properly phrased and that everyone understands what's being agreed to. I've seen too many meetings where people talk about something at length, someone says "Does that sound good?", everyone agrees that it does, indeed, sound good, and then every packs up and leaves with a slightly different understanding of what actually was agreed to. Sometimes this isn't so bad, but sometimes it can be disastrous ("No, I thought you were booking the venue!").

So essentially, the chair should encourage dissenting opinions, clarify the exact text of what we're agreeing to, and take formal votes to establish when a decision is truly being made?

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Definitely to the first two. For the third, it's not strictly necessary, but if the chair asks for unanimous consent by asking "Is there any objection?", it's important that members who do in fact have an objection speak up. This is true in any assembly, but it's especially true in such a small assembly where it would only take one more person to defeat the motion. Ultimately it depends a lot on group dynamics; the thing you really want to avoid is one or two persuasive members consistently getting their way because the procedure is lax. Does that make sense?

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7 minutes ago, Alexis Hunt said:

Definitely to the first two. For the third, it's not strictly necessary, but if the chair asks for unanimous consent by asking "Is there any objection?", it's important that members who do in fact have an objection speak up. This is true in any assembly, but it's especially true in such a small assembly where it would only take one more person to defeat the motion. Ultimately it depends a lot on group dynamics; the thing you really want to avoid is one or two persuasive members consistently getting their way because the procedure is lax. Does that make sense?

Yeah I get it. Thanks!

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