Consensus Always Decays: Navigating the Paradox of Written Agreements with Care

We recently adopted a new set of agreements to govern ourselves at Enspiral. The process of making the agreements and then living into them has caused some tensions as we learn how to grow our community well beyond Dunbar’s number.

Last night I wrote a private Loomio comment capturing my thoughts about the decaying reality of written agreements. One of my fellow Enspiral members asked me to publish it where the rest of the web could find it, so here it is…

My understanding of a written agreement is that it is the best articulation of a shared understanding between a group of people at a moment in time.

I think that the shared understanding captured in a static document immediately starts to decay, as:

A) the group grows new best practices in response to changing circumstances, and

B) trust in the group erodes due to miscommunication, personality clashes, questions about commitment or values, etc.

“A” is good and healthy innovation, though it might need some form around it to keep the bleeding-edge experimental unwritten rules from hurting people. I think the solution in our context is small agreements, frequently updated.

“B” is toxic and ever-present, and I think one of the main jobs of stewards of the culture is to be continuously weeding this beautiful garden. In practical terms that means being really proactive about hosting conversations, calling out harmful behaviour, treating each other with compassion, prioritising relationships and feelings over process and rightness.

From my experience working with different groups of people, I think there is a particular personality type that gets a huge sense of comfort, security, freedom and safety from written agreements. The idea that they don’t match reality is genuinely traumatising for them. Some of those people are my friends and colleagues so I want to support them to be in a place where they feel safe and productive, and I also want to learn how we can collectively be okay with subjectivity and ambiguity.

In other words, I think the process of trying to define a decision-making protocol with no room for interpretation is a hall of mirrors, a stack of turtles all the way down, a meta meta meta question chasm that is a verrry long way round of saying, “I love you, do you love me?”

♥