Resolve Objections

We encourage everyone to raise Objections against existing agreements and activity any time. Handling such objections isn’t always an easy tasks though.

Qualify Objections

Not all arguments raised are Objections. It usually helps to ask again "why do you think isn’t good enough for now or safe enough to try, until the next review"? When doing so, this usually reveals a valuable Concern we can document for a future review of the agreement.

Objections to proposed Agreements

During Consent Decision Making Objections prevent a Proposal from becoming an Agreement. Objections should be seen as a gift to make proposals better and not as way to block or prevent something - we amend the proposal to make it better and resolve the Objection. In rare cases it can also mean to go back and try to understand or assign the driver differently.

Objections to existing Agreements or Activities

If it’s clear which agreement or what Domain this activity falls into you can do one of the following:

  • Talk in the next Governance Meeting of the accountable circle about this or add it to their agenda

  • Create a VIP to record your Tension and assign it to the accountable circle.

  • Talk to someone who knows the agreement or the domain on what to do.

In most cases, this should be a trigger to do a Review of the agreement or domain in question.

If it’s not clear it’s most likely not an Objection but a new Tension see Understand and Assign Drivers.

Formats to resolve Objections

There is actually only one Format we found effective in most cases: Meet and discuss with the Objector, Tuners and other people who where involved in creating the Proposal:

  • You can come up directly with an amendment to the proposal that everyone in this group can consent to.

  • Chances are then very high that the accountable circle will also consent to this amendment later.

  • This usually can happen directly in the Governance Meeting where you’re making the decision.

Avoid written, asynchronous discussions when trying to resolve Objections. This proved to be very ineffective and often leads to even more misunderstandings. Collecting Objections asynchronously in a written way can make sense, discussing them like that doesn’t.

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