Building Consensus for Sustainable Pest Management in California
California state agriculture sector called for a collaborative approach to transforming pest management
Collaborative Decision-Making
Finding solutions that work for everyone
Why choose Convergent Facilitation?
Everything that matters is included
We leave no stone unturned to discover and capture what's important to all stakeholders in the decision. This creates a solid foundation to explore all sorts of creative solutions.
We aim for zero waste
We have all and only the necessary discussions, hearing every need, but not every voice. This enables us to capture all that is important to everyone without draining the group’s energy when people repeat what’s already been said.
We create conditions to make shifts possible
We don’t expect people to change their position or values, because it’s not necessary for them to agree on specific solutions. All we aim for is to make it possible for people to trust that everyone cares about what matters to them, to see that there are deep principles they all care about regardless of their differences, and to be supported in seeing and caring about what matters to others. This combination is what moves people to orient to the whole. Then they can shift to see that this or that proposal isn’t actually threatening anything that matters to them.
We aim for solutions that work for the most powerful and the least powerful
We go through great efforts to bring in, hear and integrate all that matters to all stakeholders across power differences. Without those with the most power, agreements might just not be implemented. Without those with the least power, agreements might simply not work. We know that this is a key condition for a practical, sustainable and implementable outcome.
We never settle for compromise
We know that when people compromise an agreement is more likely to be broken later. We never push anyone to agree to anything. We invite dissent to know more of what’s important and then we keep integrating what we hear until we are done. Then everyone is on board
Convergent Facilitation in the World
View all case studies »Read about real-life examples where Convergent Facilitation (CF) helped to find solutions that work for everyone: from large scale decision-making processes to weaving in the underlying principles of CF into work and personal life.
Bridging family differences in planning a funeral
Wendy Haynes reflects on a specific occasion where applying Convergent Faciltation principles supported her work with a grieving family.
Transforming a preschool’s governance structure
Parents, staff and board of Amares, a successful preschool in Cologne, Germany, changed the organisation’s legal structures, while maintaining the integrity of its values and pedagogical approach, involving parents as much as they wish and as little as is necessary, reducing costs for all families and making it more accessible for families on lower income.
Child Work and Child Labor
In just three days, a team of Convergent Facilitators helped transform a situation among groups of people working on this issue, at loggerheads with each other for decades.
Appreciation for Convergent Facilitation
" There is a belief in our culture that we have to choose between collaboration and efficiency. It’s one or the other. Convergent Facilitation shows that there is an efficient path—perhaps the only truly efficient one—that gets everyone’s needs met. "
Frederic Laloux
Author of "Reinventing Organisations"
" Convergent Facilitation will steer us away from wasting time and accelerate our work for the Great Turning "
Joanna Macy
Root teacher of the "Work That Reconnects"
" Convergent Facilitation is a revolutionary new way of collaborating by creating space for all needs to be heard, inviting dissent without fear or animosity, and attending to power dynamics that are in the room. "
Aaron Goggans
Writer, facilitator, and organizer with the Movement for Black Lives
How people experienced Convergent Facilitation
Aimee Ryan
At some point, we came upon the issue that was THE issue; the one that, if we didn't crack, we wouldn't reach consensus on the overall project. When we didn't think we could find consensus, we created the opportunity to simply publish the opposing viewpoints. Eventually, we agreed that the field didn’t need another report that outlined the polarizing perspectives. So instead, we dug deeper, expanded our creativity, and developed a frame, and solutions, that held us all.
Vanda Perez Bessone
As soon as we started meeting, we had fun. Parents, staff and board members didn’t experience the decision process as a debate - no one tried to convince anyone else - and our discussions didn’t feel endless. The main shift happened when we discovered we could integrate two pathways we initially thought of as opposite. We could merge them into a parallel and complementary model that works beautifully.
Tim Mahoney
I really had no interest nor any belief that this process would actually do anything. However, the trust that it built was quite amazing to me. I wouldn’t have believed it was possible, but we achieved more collaboratively than we were able to do as adversaries.” There was a moment when it became apparent to me that people had become problem-solvers rather than position-staters.
Katy Mamen
I came up against a lot of intense power struggles when I worked as an advocate. Instead, what I witnessed in this process was completely different: people representing different parts of the system came together and stayed together across real differences, went to the heart of thorny issues, and came out at the other end with realistic, durable and robust strategies.
Start your journey to become a Convergent Facilitator yourself
Step 1: Participate in an Intro Course
About two to three times a year we offer an introduction to the principles, practices and processes involved in Convergent Facilitation — and of course many other aspiring and inspiring Convergent Facilitators!
Step 2: Start Practicing and Learning in Community
Applying Convergent Facilitation — may it be weaving in CF principles or offering a full process to a large group — can be tough! We offer your different ways to practice in safe spaces where you can stumble and fall and learn with every step you take.
Step 3: Start Applying Convergent Facilitation
Discover more and more opportunities where you can bring Convergent Facilitation in a way that works for you and with the community supporting you every step along the way.
Join Us in Bringing Convergence to the World!
Upcoming Events
View all events »Participate in events that will give you an experience of what Convergent Facilitation feels like, give you the opportunity to ask questions to someone who's been out there and done it, get support in taking the first towards becoming a Convergent Facilitator, and deepen your skills and integration of the underlying principles.
Live Q&A with Aimee about her large scale CF project
Join Aimee and Sabine (host) to hear and ask anything you want about how Aimee applied Convergent Facilitation to work with diverse stakeholders to transform pest management in California.
5 Week Practice and Example-Focused Introductory Course to Convergent Facilitation
Starting 7 Nov 2024, Paul Kahawatte and Verene Nicolas will offer a practice-focused online introductory course to Convergent Facilitation, leaning on recordings from their March 24 course for the delivery of the theoretical aspects paired with live Q&A and guided practice exercises. The course will start with a live Demo by Paul and also feature a live Q&A session with Aimee Ryan who facilitated a major CF process in the area of pest management in California in 2021-2022.
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