# 3
“Good Quaker process can’t be effective and efficient.”
Does it have to be excruciating?
In fact, good Quaker process is very effective: it achieves the goal of uniting a community and committing them to right action.
And done well, it is very efficient, in that resources aren’t wasted on trying to jolly along the disgruntled minority after you thought you’d come to a decision.
Is it always fast? No.
And it can be derailed or detoured unnecessarily. But then, that isn’t good process, is it?
Does it have to be excruciating?
In fact, good Quaker process is very effective: it achieves the goal of uniting a community and committing them to right action.
And done well, it is very efficient, in that resources aren’t wasted on trying to jolly along the disgruntled minority after you thought you’d come to a decision.
Is it always fast? No.
And it can be derailed or detoured unnecessarily. But then, that isn’t good process, is it?
Labels: top ten
posted by Robin M. at 1:00 PM
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2 Comments:
I agree that good Quaker process is very effective. This becomes quite clear if one considers not only the time and effort required to "make" a decision, but also the time and effort needed to implement it. While it may take (not always) more clock time to reach a decision using Quaker methodology, when the decision is made everyone agrees it is the best thing for this group at this time - therefore there are no disgruntled 'losers' to slow the implementation, consciously or unconsciously. I managed to incorporate this into a master's thesis in Management, back in the day...
--llw
A management thesis on Quaker process? Are you allowed to talk about God in a management thesis?
I think that one of the issues is that many of us, in the meetings I've been a part of, come to Quaker business process as adults. It's a stretch for us to understand how it's different from other truth-discerning and decision-making processes. And many meetings don't do enough explicit teaching of how it works and, more importantly, why.
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