Hack:
The Deliberative Corporation

How do you insure that deliberate doesn't become paralysis?..never all the right questions,constantly going through groups or is time the trade off of this process?

The Deliberative Poll hack is a brilliant innovation in the process of group decision making. Amazingly, it appears to work equally well in both authoritarian and anarchic communities -- which describe most corporations!

The two areas that appear most challenging when applying this in a corporate environment are a) developing broad-based briefing materials, and b) synthesizing the results to produce optimal policy recommendations. I would like to see more "Best Practice Guidelines" for how to achieve those goals in a commercial setting, as the private sector doesn't have as much experience in these skills as the public sector does.

I like the shape and dimension of this approach.
1. Lately I have been using "qualify, append, or approve" as a way to develop toward consensus. I treat it like something of a modified "yes, and" approach. This helps people not only be heard, but also to dig into building upon what is being shared.
2. Successful implementation of this, I am sure, also has to do with the soft skills of just about everyone involved. Do you include criteria or guidelines for those soft people skills when offering implementations of the tool?
So exciting to see this. I was just looking at a blog post about wicked messes where someone was bemoaning the lack of consensus processes to navigate them and underneath that, people's inability to recognize a wicked problem. Thank you! And best to you!

Awesome concept. This could truly be transformative.

Now can we just get our Congress to use something like this to get off their ideological high horses and reach meaningful resolution around issues such as our deficit / debt!? I guess one can always dream.... :-)

This has the potential to be the disruptive management innovation for the next decade.

It allows large corporations, traditionally monolithic in nature and glacial in character, to begin acting like the fast moving, innovative entities they profess to be.

This technology is what we call a "signal" here at the Institute for the Future. Evidence in the present day of a technology that will become mainstream over the coming years, due to the foresight and willingness to take risks by its creators. I look forward to seeing this work develop and shape the way the institutions make decisions in the future!

Given the events in Washington D.C. and Wall Street these past few years, more and more people are recognizing that traditional forms of "representation" (whether in govt, corporations, or other large institutions) are at times not only inefficient, but can actually have destructive consequences for the interests they supposedly represent -- and as a result damage our broader society.

However, deliberative technology has the potential to bring informed thought and representational discipline back into the process and inject merit-based decision making that actually serves the interests of the broader based stakeholders in these organizations. 

The sooner we bring these types of technologies into the mainstream, the better off we all will be.

For too long we've been managing to stamp out discourse and consumerize our Government. Politicians seek money to feed into TV ads... you know the cycle and whom it benefits.

We're at the start of a slow process of reconnection, of taking back agency for our lives and communities. A huge piece of this is learning to make critical decisions together, and Deliberative Polling offers a great solution to that.

With this and other processes that enhance collective sensemaking, we should have an involved citizenry back from this consumer culture soon.

This is an important link in shoring up some of the inherent weaknesses in a representative democracy, and carries with it significant implications for the business world as well. Well done.

The body of individual decision theory demonstrates that sometimes analytical desision proesses and evaluation often render counter-intuitive yet superior outcomes. A process of individual analysis often reveals a number of previously unconsidered options. However, in most cases we often jump to the first conclusion. Now pose a decision, any decision in front of a group of people and the opportunities for informed group decision reduces markedly. The Deliberative Polling mechanism offers one of the greatest advances in decision engineering en mass with global implications for responsible and informed group decision making and deliberation. Much of the 21st century will challenge our global civilization like never before. The outdated political, economic and environmental systems that we currently engage were tools of the industrial age, with effectiveness diminishing towards the end of the 20th century. Deliberative Polling presents a well thought out and implemented mechanism for clear stakeholder understanding leading to decisions that yield results on a greater and more urgent scale than previously achieved.

Simply world changing.

Advancements in technology have far outpaced the evolution of government for some time now. This problem is most apparent today in cases where democracy is threatened by small, vocal groups that can hold large populations hostage during the decision or law making process. Much of this problem lies at the feet of a majority that remains silent and sidelined today due to inaccessible and/or inefficient communication tools. The Deliberative Corporation and Reframe It present an opportunity to solve this problem with an innovative process and technology that can be easily and intuitively applied to advance citizen participation and improve collective intelligence and policy making. Yes, this model applies to multiple audiences (employees, group members, congregants, etc.), but to me its greatest use may be in empowering citizens.

I think you should learn about the Issue Based Information System, IBIS, and its modern textbook, "Dialogue Mapping" by Jeff Conklin. See also his short YouTube video about recording a conversation. This is the best technology I know of for representing multiple viewpoints without making mush.

Everything starts with questions. Questions are more important than answers. The prime concern should be to develop great questions. Let contributors propose alternative questions. No answer/claim/position is allowed except in answer to some specific question. Naturally contributors may propose alternative answers. Similarly answers may have multiple arguments both pro and con. It is amazing how much clarity is provided by knowing the question to which this is the answer.

Of course any part of any item may give rise to new questions about it. And both footnotes and links to supportive material may also be attached to any part of any item. Extensions to facilitate polling/voting on any item might be great, but I know of no examples. I think that it is valuable not to show the authorship of the items.

Such a framework may be valuable for research issues. Aspects of Toyota's A3 Process, Managing to Learn might enhance this approach. See John Shook's book on the topic. W. Edwards Deming's management philosophy has been shown to be quite powerful in several dimensions.

Software to assist in maintaining, growing, and revising dialogue maps could be helpful.

I agree with Richard K. I went to a town planning meeting in Mountain View to weigh in on the 20 year plan. It was a nice assembly. The intention was to get input from the community. And on the surface everything looked on the up and up. But the whole framing of the event and the questions posed assumed continued growth and development in the normal manner. Creating more public and green space was not within the frame so did not get the air time it deserved. That said, this process seems broadly applicable and I give two thumbs up.

Completely agree with the comments from Richard and especially my friend Neal about the importance of the framing of the event: the questions that are asked are all-important. They can either reinforce existing assumptions, or create the discursive space to examine and perhaps overturn them.

But that's part of what I think is smart about the Deliberative Corporation process. As I understand it, the online segment of the process, wedged in between the two deliberative polls, offers anyone in the community the opportunity to pose new questions and thereby reframe the debate.

Congratulations to this team for a great innovation!

Really useful in complex situations where real change is desired.

Beautifully thorough work on an aspect of online life that is only increasing in relevance.

Recent lessons suggest that systems of group-to-mass participation that can't keep up with events (government,) are too automated (stock markets) or too autocratic either fail or are circumvented by people demanding progress.

Organizations of all sizes that understand the need to engage their constituencies along with the need to stay ahead will turn to new solutions to support their needs. Facebook and Twitter point the way but do not provide enough of a deliberative framework to support concrete results.

Really agree with Bobby's comments on the importance of representation over consensus. In my experience people who believe they have made an important contribution to achieving a worthwhile goal care less about consensus and more about the quality of the conclusion. Clear goals and a strong sense of representation bring out people's rational qualities in other words.

The trick I think will be to distill this research into something fluid and accessible - something that can be used without having to understand the underlying theory.

Segwaying on Jerry's 'enhance collective sensemaking': what would make this great idea even better is a memetic analysis of the topic of the discussion before the original poll questions are written. We have seen many cases when the memes of the survey question was out of synch with the local memeset - be it a gov or a company environment - and the answer did not - and could not! - make sense. Understanding the memetic dimensions of the problem could also help in the deliberative phase. These dimensions will reveal those elements that the community will resonate with allowing you to focus on the most important aspects.

This process is an opportunity to reboot democracy, and expand the concept from government to businesses. There are already successful examples of doing this, the book "Maverick" from Ricardo Semler is an example of such a successful experiments. Kudos to the Reframeit team for productizing the deliberative process so that it can spread as much as possible.

Amazing concepts. And it's great to see how the theory is not just theory, and that there are pragmatic ways to use these processes in order to bring more democracy and a better decision process in different fields.

I love this concept. I love that is is looking to out-manouevre those who game our democratic systems, and deliver on the promise of an informed and represented public both in politics and business. I think what I love most is how evidently in love the creators of this process are with the principles of democracy and an engaged public. Bravo.

This looks like a good way to address unintentional and intentional bias in decision-making. The nature of difficult decisions seem to necessarily involve both advocacy and open-minded thinking, so it’s very encouraging to see examples of progress in areas of natural conflict.

I wish this process had been around when I worked in the US public radio system. As it was, NPR engaged an excellent and ambitious process called "New Realities" to survey member station staff to help guide a new collective strategy reflective of the changing media landscape. The one regret I always had was that the public was not brought in to bear on how the public radio system should evolve.

In my mind, there has always been a practical response to this regret; the public is largely uninformed about the many details inherent to how public radio really works -- from production, to distribution and, ultimately, to funding. Aside from the lead time that would be needed to educate an engaged public on public radio in its totality, there wasn't an established process to frame the issues, provide context and then organize the results into any actionable response.

Until now.

This is an exciting evolution in democracy -- not just because it provides a solid and credible framework for public deliberation. It is a practical and humanistic process that encourages the best aspects of our humanity; collaboration, thought and, ultimately, one would hope, understanding.

One of the laments of scholars of politics is that the American public (as portrayed in surveys) is uninterested and not knowledgeable about politics. However, a robust finding is that deliberation can improve political decision making and make people feel more efficacious.

Applying the concept of deliberative polling to management settings is a brilliant and natural extension. Deliberation has enormous potential to improve profitability while at the same time forwarding corporate social responsibility and sustainability.

I really like this technologically innovative and philosophically democratic process. It should be wildly known internationally, in particular, among Japanese policy makers, since I always feel that even very able politicians sometimes fail in incorporating regular people's great ideas into their policies. Absolutely fascinating concept!

This is a critical tool for any organization who wants to be a game-changer and innovate. This is the kind of thinking that will help push organizations into realizing their real potential on a continuous basis.

All thumbs up!

Susan Yecies

This is extremely useful material and a timely approach to current business practices. Social media is literally flooding top management with input -- and input by definition is neither information or data, it is just stuff. One of the biggest problems business decision makers who fully understand the ramifications of their decisions have is learning to separate overwhelming noise from critical feedback. This is not trivial, because a decision maker can not afford to stop listening, but must know when surges of conflicting messages are less useful than they appear. It is a very fine line, to separate useful comment from distraction. The Deliberative Process as methodology has the potential to help executives better digest and interpret that which is useful while effectively deflecting noise. That is no small trick, since time is precious, but critical listening is even more precious.

An interesting way to combat th dumbing-down of social decision making based on unformed (and uninformed) opinion.

The Deliberative Corporation ("DC") presents a highly useful methodology for bringing the views of subject matter experts together withthe experiences, practical wisdom and emotional intelligence of the stakeholder population that will either make an important decision, or have to live with the impacts and consequences of that decision. As an attorney who litigates high stakes cases for corporate clients that must make decisions not only about individual cases, but also policy decisions that must balance long range corporate opportunity with risk, I have found Professor Fishkin's book "When the People Speak: Deliberative Democracy and Public Consultation to be invaluable. Robert Fishkin's Reframe It software adds a dimension of power and access to Deliberative Polling.

The Deliberative Corporation is an enlightened and democratic approach to problem solving in the 21st century. Social media and Social technology are often decried for creating harm and waste, but it is inventions and intelligence like the DC that advance our society through education, participation and fairness. This is what social intelligence and action should look like. DC is a socially just and socially relevant winner.

What a necessary burst of fresh, good sense that The Deliberative Corporation injects into the polling process for intelligent, democratic decision-making. With still a good many places in the world--governments and corporations and more--hindered by access to information issues and political pressures that in turn stymie decision-making, DC establishes a baseline expectation of fair engagement of all stakeholders. I also appreciate how the social technology also appropriately mirrors the democratic nature of the DC process; the digital engagement experience of commenting on relevant texts within the DC process effectively closes the distance between the issue at hand and the participant, truly engaging him or her on a decision and set of texts that would otherwise typically be far removed--often behind the glass of a television screen, or behind the closed doors of a boardroom.

One question that comes to mind is how you have factored in the issue of anonymity in this process--especially as it affects a participant in a traditional focus group (when his or her identity is hidden from the public) and on online forums (when users often have the freedom to either adopt aliases or use their true identities). Have you considered how this might affect the frankness of comments if employees or citizens use their real identities and might fear later retribution from employers or their government?

So often, competing constituencies are either placated or controlled or silenced as a means to the end of policy creation, but DC appears to offer a process toward policy that reconstitutes and unifies those constituencies through contextualizing information. Reframe It seems to secure individuality of voice and equality of access--two of the best elements of this technology and of democracy as well. That DC is flexible enough to work with small or large groups, in companies and across countries and differing cultures means to me that the inventors have hit on something global that has the potential to effectively deliver on the promise of democratic process. How exciting is that?!

Amazing and necessary approach.

To me, this is both incredibly practical and necessary. To have experts providing the know-how coupled with learning "what the people would think if they were thinking" are what I wish all organizations, public and private would employ. I especially like the idea of online commentary so that really everyone can contribute (and maybe help add anonymity?).

An innovative and exciting sampling model. This should have significant impact on the accuracy and relativity of polling.

This venture by The Deliberative Corporation with an assist from Reframe It brings substance and meaning to the United Nations’ recent declaration of the Internet as a basic human right. So often technology gets ahead of itself and human beings who might not have access to elite political spaces. Quite to the contrary, the Deliberative Corporation keeps human beings at the center of a process that harnesses the power of deliberation and technology in a political sphere mindful of diversity, difference and the human urge for cooperation. Delightful to me are phrases in the summary like, “empowers an entire population,” “all members of the relevant population,” “deeply divided cultures,” and “the ability for the entire population to participate in the discussion.” The cutting edge in tandem with the classical is fascinating and, most importantly, posits plausible models for social change in all kinds of groups and organizations.

The more Deliberative Polls that happen around the world, the more it becomes obvious that this process is far and away the most powerful and practical antidote for the dire state of national political decision making and the slough of despondent cynicism that we've fallen into regarding politics.
I hadn't thought about the application of DPs to corporate decision making but this is a powerful idea. It cannot help but have a positive impact on a corporation and in turn the wider society. Well done.

Among the excellent set of finalists, the two with which I'm most familiar – and admire greatly – are the Deliberative Corporation and MIT's Deliberatorium.

Both are grounded in a systematic form of deep and wide listening, informed structured dialogue, mutual understanding, and pragmatic negotiation geared towards effective action: and both point towards a more open, agile, rigorous and transparent system of civic and corporate governance.

Both seek to build on social media’s strength as a serendipity catalyst by giving participants the means to interact mindfully, to surface difficult questions, to learn collaboratively, creatively and cumulatively from each other, and to take responsibility and hold each other accountable for the decisions arising from their deliberations.

The deliberative work that both entail is demanding and inspiring – as the best work should be – and in an age of eddying noise and complexity, of financial and political uncertainty, and of intense pressure on resources, this work has never been more important.

Both would be worthy winners of the Management 2.0 Challenge.

The Deliberative Corporation process shows a way to implement an important missing element from 21st century polling. It fits well with the Social Network media and in my opinion, the time has come for widespread deliberative polling. It should be used in many frameworks - political, social and corporate.

Large organizations face difficult decisions on a regular basis that impact all of their stakeholders, and this level of complexity is rising. I believe that engaging stakeholders in decisions that impact them increases their productive engagement with that organization, which in an era when only 51% of US employees are interested in their work (a 19% drop since 1987), has to be a positive development for all concerned. The Deliberative Corporation seems to me to be a very positive development in the practice of management.

When Churchill quoted “democ­racy is the worst form of gov­ern­ment, except for all the oth­ers” - he might have welcomed the concept of deliberative corporation.

Crowd-sourcing and open forums can be overrun with highly mobilized special interests, and today's social media will see an amplification of this effect. Perhaps it's time - we try out a new, and well informed concept of decision making.

One of the flaws of corporate management is how key decisions are made unilaterally or are the result of having been besieged by voices that rise above the rest because amplitude not aptitude.

Deliberative polling in the corporate environment is a positive step in eliminating blowhards from the decision-making process and giving voice back to the people who's daily work can better influence key decisions.

The powerful online group annotation tools that promote sharing and collaboration with fellow staff paired with the deliberative polling process is exactly how technology and process should coalesce and is exactly how management can -- and will -- be reinvented in the not to distant future.

I would love this to already exist and hope The Deliberative Corporation wins this competition!

This hack enables a sustainable decision making process that leaders can leverage for rapid organizational change. I dreamed of this in 2001 to support business leaders to adopt more socially responsible and ecologically sustainable practices. How can we lead the kinds of massive shifts like we are facing in our lifetimes - weather brought on by economic or natural storms or our collective human impact - without knowing what our educated stakeholders would think about current matters at hand?

The hack's solution gives insight that can drive communications that lead to better engagement with and between employees. Multiple channels of constructive feedback loops can be created through The Deliverative Corporation that can improve decision making and as a result policies in a corporation. Awesome!

The hack combines 2 things well: 1. deliberative polling provides an in depth approach to getting at how people think in an organization while 2. the online commenting leverages the massive wave of online social interaction that is changing the way we all live today.

Thanks for the effort to refine and share this with the world - hope it wins (and either way that it

Should be noted that this is better than proxy or a voting booth to measure the values of the democracy. It is just enough work to get to the polls or respond to proxy, and the chances are so small of affecting income, that is strictly irrational to vote. Only the ideologs and retirees looking for entertainment bother. And you can go into a voting booth knowing nothing about down slate judges and still get equal impact as someone who knows. We get emotional know- nothings, by the nature of the process, from votes and proxies. The Debilerative poll both gives information enough to make the vote worth something and also gives the process a chance at representing the true deep fundamental values of hte Democracy.

The Deliberative Polling was introduced into Longbiao Company to improve management system in Wenling city, Zhejiang Province, China on 30 June 2006. It was great success. The boss of the company was pleased to see how ordinary workers participate in the decision-making process and contribute to creating a new deliberative management system. The managers of the Longbiao implemented the recommendation made by the workers.

Process has always been as important to me as the end result, and the Deliberative Corporation establishes a process and framework for making informed decisions that can then be implemented more effectively and efficiently with greater stakeholder buy-in. I'm eager to see what happens next with the thoughtful work that the Fishkins have done.

Imagine broad swaths of informed stakeholders who actually understand what is at stake...well, you not only have imagined it, you've created the methodology and means to make it happen...across organizations, regions, countries. A critically needed corrective to today's norm of bumper sticker-"educated" populations.

Excellent idea and like the design too but just wondering about the scalability of this approach to say large populations. In a controlled set for example within large companies this may work but how does the approach propose to control the maintenance costs (moderation, support) associated with this exercise when we have say a 10000 interested people. Is it possible to automate the moderation without losing the effectiveness.

Also when there is a vocal deliberation in the council, one can hear the opinions of what others are saying. This not only avoids repitition but also many times helps in shaping opinions. With an online system its possible that the comment notes get ignored probably due to volumes? For example the comments below in this hack itself run upto 3 pages, but I only managed to read the first page. So its possible I am just repeating something what is already written and commented upon. This will increase the work for moderators, unless they are proactively voting comments up / down.

Nevertheless this is a good start and fantastic idea. Perhaps it would be nice to self-validate this hack by putting it for deliberation on the reframe it site!

Great hack. Congrats! Although you will never entirely entirely remove (internal or other) politics from the decision-making process, I guess... @cdn

Very interesting and lots of potential for developing cross-segmentation understanding. I am particularly interested in how it could be applied in educational environments at the micro (classroom) and macro (district/state) level. Well done.

Provides a dynamic approach increasing the opportunity to dig more deeply into views,feelings and true source of interest and concern. Most people initially express a viewpoint,concern or complaint that they believe at a given moment--but which often is not reflective of the actual source of their point of view.Deliberative Polling is not limited to a static "photographic" point of view. Deliberative Polling engages a process which allows for reflection and an opportunity to get at the underlying source of an initial expression of thought or opinion, i.e. decoding a first viewpoint to expose a deeper understanding and derive more penetrating information, thereby making the poll more effective and useful.

Well this will help decision making that will benefit the company, business or organization. Informed opinions will play a big part here, right decision can make a company or business more successful and more stronger.

Regards,
Maryann Farrugia
http://www.offshorebusinessprocessing.com/maryann-farrugia