Originally from Alternatives to the High Cost of Litigation

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How does consensus building work?

Consensus building is a collaborative process individuals and groups of all sizes can use to reach agreements and make decisions everyone in the group can support. It is a way of bringing unity to diverse populations, synthesizing dissenting opinions, and connecting divergent paths by revealing, discovering, or inventing common ground. It is a way of transforming the assumption that differences merely divide people, into the realization that they are also frames of reference and angles of perception that expose unique, subjectively valid aspects of a shared reality.

Consensus building begins by reaching agreement on almost anything, even relatively trivial agreements about whether, when, where, and how to meet. Those factors can then be multiplied so they seep inward and spread outward, creating a context, momentum, and energy of collaboration and commonality.

Differences that arise within this positive context do not easily overwhelm it. But when the context is negative, conflicted, and antagonistic, it is far more difficult to return to friendly, collaborative, trusting interactions.