Seeking Consensus

How do you get social agreement on contentious issues? This was a problem faced by the Australian Government after the Bondi shooting in which 15 Jewish people were killed. Tightening gun laws was a no-brainer. There was little resistance to reducing the number of guns a person could own, tightening licensing restrictions and initiating a buy-back scheme to get guns out of circulation.

The problem came with legislation to limit hate speech. Where is the line between freedom of speech and speech that inflames hatred, be they racial groups, non-heterosexual groups, or any group that does not fit with another group’s values?

What we need is a process for reaching consensus. It doesn’t matter whether it is hate speech or any other topic with widely divergent views. We need, in this country and around the world, a process that can reach a compromise position that can be carried forward.

This will not work unless all involved parties agree that they are part of a society and that that society cannot function without give and take. It cannot be “my way or the highway”. If the parties to the discussion are not prepared to accept the majority view, the process is doomed. In fact, isn’t democracy about doing what is best for the majority without ignoring the needs of the minority?

I will digress to discuss a personal experience relevant to the discussion. I have been on various ISO (International Standards Organisation) committees for about 15 years. Most people are either unaware of ISO or only vaguely aware of it. I can guarantee that if you look around your room, you will find products and services that are covered by either ISO standards or ISO standards adapted for your country. Standards number in the tens of thousands and cover everything from electrical equipment to building materials and techniques, to clothing, furnishings and just about anything you could imagine.

The most widely used standard is ISO 9001, which addresses quality management in business. It is an assessable standard that sets criteria for quality management systems to ensure consistent product/service quality. Over 1 million corporations are assessed against this standard. Other significant standards include Environmental Management, Occupational Health and Safety, Information Security, Food Safety, and Medical Devices.

I am the Australian representative on a requirements standard for Project Management in companies. In other words, a standard where a company can be audited to prove its ability to undertake projects. This new standard is largely driven by developing countries, which often see more than half of their aid from foreign governments, NGOs, and charities wasted through graft, corruption, and the incompetence of local firms. One African government has promised that it will not allow companies to tender for aid projects unless they have been properly assessed against this standard. If companies are reassessed and fail, they are removed from the tender list until they prove they have rectified deficiencies, be it through new procedures, better governance, recruitment, or structural changes. The standard is not a silver bullet to eliminate all waste, but it will mean that billions of dollars in aid will reach the people for whom it is intended.

My point is that over 100 countries with vastly different cultures and practices have to agree on a document that will then become an International Standard. What process has ISO developed that can mould such diverse views into a single view?

There is an ISO Technical Committee for countries interested in project management, with over 100 members. Several documents have been produced over the last few decades relating to aspects of project management.

Before the project can commence, a proposal to start a new project must be developed and approved by the ISO group’s members through the Technical Committee. If the proposal is accepted, a working group is established comprising representatives of countries and other interested parties. In our case, one of the key people on the team is the chair of the team that produced ISO 9001 (Quality Management for Business). That working group usually consists of many in an observer role, and perhaps 25-30 active participants who attend meetings, and a core of something under a dozen who drive the work. All are volunteers, so being actively involved is a big commitment.

Teams meet face-to-face for a week about every six months and hold virtual meetings in between. In busy periods, those virtual meetings can be almost weekly. Unfortunately, the meetings are usually scheduled to suit European and American participants, so being in Australia can often mean meetings in the middle of the night, or travelling halfway across the world to attend. I recently attended a Zoom meeting for three days, from 7 pm to 2 am.

A convenor runs the meetings, and everyone is encouraged to work, contribute, act respectfully, and reach consensus. When the first draft is developed, and this might involve some sub-committees preparing sections, it is put out to the whole working group for comment. The comments must be presented so that each includes a rationale for the proposed change and an alternative. For example, imagine I was commenting on the first sentence of this paragraph.

COMMENT

Section. A convenor runs the meetings, and everyone is encouraged to work, contribute, act respectfully, and reach consensus.

Reason. The use of the words “work” and “contribute” is a duplication. They mean the same thing.

Proposed Text. A convenor runs the meetings, and everyone is encouraged to contribute, act respectfully, and reach consensus.

The first draft is circulated within the working group, and comments are collected. The group then meets for up to a week to discuss the comments. There may be a thousand or more comments to adjudicate. On any particular paragraph, there may be a dozen comments. Some countries might want to make one change, while others might want another. Some may even want to delete the section or add supplementary information.

To describe it as wading through mud is being kind. It can be extremely frustrating to be bogged down on one line for an hour, but the role of the Convenor is to work towards a solution that everyone can live with. It almost always works in the end, perhaps through exhaustion.

When the first working group draft is complete, the group may decide to have a second round of commenting and produce a second draft. This is usually a six-month process in which a draft from the first meeting is prepared, circulated, and people are given a few months to discuss it with their professional colleagues and submit further proposals. The final draft is called a working draft.

After the Working Group is satisfied that it has a workable draft, now called a committee draft, it is circulated to all interested parties for their input. The review cycle continues, but with a broader audience. All participants agree that the proposed changes are just that. Proposed, not dictated. There are no red lines, and each comment is treated equally, regardless of who submits it. In a sense, each comment is anonymous.

The committee draft may also go through several six-month iterations until the working group agrees it is a final draft, and it is voted on by all members of the Technical Committee to become the standard.

At this stage, ISO take over the document and reviews it to ensure it meets all their requirements, including translation into other languages. Finally, the document is published as an official ISO standard.

But it doesn’t end there. Each country can choose to approve or not approve the document as a standard in its own country. In Australia, Standards Australia is the body responsible. SA proposes the standard, and if approved by members, it becomes part of the Australian system. In some cases, a standard is adopted with modifications, or a local standard exists, and there is no need to replace it with an international standard.

Some standards are mandatory. A good example is power sockets. You don’t want a wall socket that does not meet a certain standard. If a wall socket is made cheaply, and they cut a few features to keep the cost down, the result could be deadly.

Other standards are optional. An organisation can choose to use the standard or not. Some are guidelines that describe best practice and can help organisations improve their quality. Some standards are used in contractual work between companies or countries. A company might specify that a product complies with a particular standard regardless of whether the standard is mandatory in either country.

Are there people with agendas? Of course. Are some people reluctant to shift their position? Often. Are there dummy spits and tantrums? Occasionally. Does anyone ever walk away getting everything they want? Never. Is the process always the same? Mostly,

Having said that, I introduced something new to the current project that I am involved in. I had the committee agree on 11 principles before we started drafting. Those principles related to how we constructed the document rather than the topic. We agreed on who the document was aimed at, that we would cover “what” needed to be done rather than “how” to do it, how it aligned with other standards, etc.

We started with a broad range of views on the document’s purpose, so it was useful to reach agreement on its intended purpose before proceeding. Since we set out the principles, there have been times when we have been discussing a point, and someone has reminded us of the principles we agreed to. It has resolved a point of contention. The process is reasonably rigid, but it can be varied.

Developing a standard that fits all countries typically takes 3+ years. It can be mind-numbingly tedious, particularly for someone like me who is not detail-oriented. If you want something of value, however, you do need to work through the details and take onboard a whole range of divergent views. There are no shortcuts.

I started by discussing social agreement and used the ISO process to illustrate the development of an international standard. Here are some key points.

• There must be an agreement that all parties will accept the outcome of the process, which will be a majority-driven consensus.
• It should be clear what the topic’s scope will be.
• All interested parties should be allowed to be involved.
• Everyone has an equal say.
• There is a process to follow.
• Respect must be shown between all parties.
• The role of an independent convenor is essential.
• When the core working group drafts a document, it should be shared with other interested parties outside the group for their feedback.
• Comments should not be taken into account unless an alternative is proposed.
• The working group considers comments and either accepts or rejects them with reasons provided if it is a rejection.

One key question is who should be involved. Interested parties usually include vested interests. Should they be allowed to push their barrow? It is hard to come up with an answer for every occasion. Perhaps an unaffiliated person might be a better option. For example, rather than a person from a business lobby group, an academic recognised as a business authority might be a better answer.

One of the least suitable candidates is a politician. Their career relies on pleasing the people who voted for them. They need to be treated the same as monetary policy, which is delegated to the Reserve Bank to decide. You are not trying to please people when resolving a particular social issue. You are trying to find the best solution. Better to involve subject-matter experts rather than people who have one eye on the subject and the other on the next election.

It doesn’t matter whether it is legislation for hate speech, addressing indigenous problems, taxation reform or any other social issue. We need a process to work through the issues that involves representatives from different constituencies, who are prepared to develop a consensus approach and take it back to their group as an agreed outcome. It should also be recognised that it might take months or years to reach a workable solution, but if you want the best, most workable, and acceptable solution, it takes time.