This summer I got to spend a lot of time with family. I have deep love for my family and experience such joy when I get time with them.
At one point we were at my aunt's place on the Olympic Peninsula. This place is magic!
When you walk up the hill from her house there is a beautiful, lush Pacific Northwest forest. She's been building a trail to get access to walk through these woods. While gathered, many of us helped clear the trail.
One night after dinner she asked the dozen of us gathered - how should we name this trail.
We wanted something that would be fun and allow us to all feel good about the name. So we developed a consensus building game.
We decided charades had to be part of the process. But we also wanted to give everyone a level of anonymity.
So first we all wrote down name ideas and put them in a large pot. People drew names and acted them out, while others tried to guess. This was a hilarious process that brought meaning and imagery to the long list of ideas gathered. The guessing also created new ideas.
But then we had 20 plus names and needed a way to shrink it down and pick one.
I proposed we use the Socratic method of decision-making. A model of consensus building that allows for dialogue and generative ideas, while moving us toward a collective decision. My family was game.
We each took a small piece of paper and chose our top choice name and wrote it down. We went around the circle and everyone said their first choice name and why they chose it. We got to name what was important to us. Listen. Be heard. Be inspired and moved by what others said. And through the second go around, a group consensus emerged.
The nearly universal choice for a trail name was Abundance or A-bun-dance, which had been acted out in the most brilliant dancing extravaganza. We were able to talk about the double entendre and capture the hilarious, lighthearted joy and dancing that we share and the deep appreciation for the Earth's beauty, bounty and ever flowing and expanding spiritual nurturing available here. With the conversation we also generated another name for a different section RAZ Rise after the children in the group.
We left this process with our cheeks and bellies aching from all the laughter, an even deeper sense of connection with one another, and a meaningful and funny trail name that we all loved.
I am grateful for Paula Cole Jones, who first introduced me to this decision-making process as a way for our church community to make equitable decisions that counter racism and other forms of oppression. It was introduced to me at a moment of extreme tension in one of my communities and the depths of communication that were unearthed through the process were palpable.
Whether it is a lighthearted trail naming or a weighty decision that touches on issues of inter-generational grief and oppression, how we make decisions together matters. Joy, connection and generative outcomes are possible when communities and organizations invest in collective decision-making processes.
When have you experienced joy flow from a decision you have made with others?
What allowed you to deepen connections when making a decision?
How can you include more people directly impacted by the decision at hand and build more fun into the process you go through together?