Convergent Facilitation

Convergent Facilitation (or CF) is a method for making difficult and challenging decisions collaboratively. It is particularly useful for making decisions that are very significant and bring up strong disagreement and tension.

Whilst Integrative Decision Making (or IDM) is the standard way decisions are made in XR’s Self-Organising System, there are some situations which are more suited to Convergent Facilitation. This is because IDM has a higher threshold for disagreement because only things that would cause harm or move us backwards are considered valid objections.

Convergent Facilitation, on the other hand, has a more flexible threshold and works by first capturing what’s important to everyone, allowing it to harness more of the wisdom of a group. This helps groups make collaborative decisions around highly contentious situations, such as the Heathrow Action where there was a huge amount of tension and disagreement.

Another key part of the XR organism functioning healthily would be a group of facilitators trained in this approach and an easy way for groups to access them.