Beyond this, I am not sure whether the joke about the speed of Quaker process is actually true?

For one, it seems to assume that making quick decisions is always best (in some cases, yes, a quick decision is best — a child having an allergic reaction needs a different kind of decision than working out a community budget, but I do not believe this is not true for every decision — say picking a life partner or writing out a new mission statement. Secondly, it’s hard to know how much time a decision takes because there are at least two entry points: the entry point prior to a decision versus the entry point after a decision is made.

As Robert Wood writes:

The search for the sense of the Meeting is time-consuming, and many people who are used to voting procedures think it highly inefficient. However, after many years of working with it in a variety of quite different Quaker institutions, I believe that the time from idea to action may be about the same in both systems, and that a truly shared sense of Meeting facilitates collective action. What is shorter in voting systems, where the majority rules, is the time from idea to decision; but if the decision does not reflect a consensus, the time from decision to action can be long indeed.

Here are three ways I see communities practicing group discernment can have a real impact on the speed that it takes to follow this process.

1. The Decision After the Decision

In another post, I take up the idea of the before and after of a decision. Commonly, so much of our emphasis is on the lead up to the actual decision, but there is a lot to be said for communities and people who are able to support and adjust when a decision has been made.

I learned this lesson most powerfully when I had a very clear leading to say “yes” to something that I knew had the potential to impact the larger community I was in. After saying “yes,” making a quick decision in the moment because that was what was called for, I went to the elders of my Meeting and told them about the decision I’d made, the reasons why I made it, and then asked for their help in knowing how to move forward. They could have taken this and said, “You need to go back on that decision until we have time to have “proper” process around it.” They were certainly entitled to that response. But I think they understand to that there are multiple ways into decision-making as a group.

After I was done sharing the backstory, the clerk of elders asked time of silent waiting worship (see also this fuller description). Eventually one of the elders spoke, not just in support of the decision, but offered one piece of the next step in moving forward. Then another spoke up and offered another piece. Then another and another. This showed me that there should be as much importance on the back-end of decision as on the front-end, and sometimes even more.

Our ability to track with and build upon the initial decision that has been initiated in a community is actually an essential part of participating in the decision-making process of that community.

It’s one thing for a leader, a committee, or a community to say “we’re going to do this,” it’s quite another to actually to take the role of “yes, and” and carry that decision forward in new and creative ways. This saying “yes” builds the community because it requires the whole community to do so.

The first point about Quaker process and the speed at which a decision is made then is this: it matters where you put the emphasis of the decision. If it is simply getting the “yes” or “no” of a vote, and our question about timing doesn’t include the participation in the decisions-after-the-decision or the-actions-after-the-decision, then we are not taking into account all of the cost of time, emotion, and work involved in decision-making as a community building process.

2. The Clerk Disappears

A second aspect that helps loosen up the ligaments in Quaker process enough to help keep things moving is this: the ability of the clerk to remain both humble and in a posture of authentic listening to both God and the community. The role of the clerk within a Quaker Meeting is essential to the proper functioning of group discernment in that community.

flickr credit: mawoo86

Consider this metaphor between remix and discernment and the role a clerk plays as the “turntablist” in a Quaker Meeting:

One of the clearest ways that we practice remix is through discernment. Discernment is in fact the DJ turntable of the Quaker community, it is the space where the various tracks, or threads come together, and are mixed together by the Holy Spirit and by the discerning community. This is the table where the original artwork, the traditions we draw on, are mixed with the convictions and concerns of the discerning community under the Holy Spirit… (From Discernment and Remix)

The ability of the clerk to hold together these various threads, tensions, and potentially competing interests requires that they are able to “get out of the way” enough to allow the music to speak for itself. If the DJ is good enough, the music blends together so well, so beautifully, you don’t even know they are there. The best DJs “disappear” while the music takes center stage. In a similar way in a Quaker Meeting, the clerk disappears. A really good clerk of a Quaker process is someone who is able to work the turntable enough that they go unseen so that God’s will as it is being discerned by the community can take center stage. This is why it requires such great humility to be a good clerk.

Typically clerks in Meetings understand that theirs is a position of humble service to the community. It is the one role in the Meeting where you voluntarily are meant to give up your own voice, your own power and position, so that the will of God can be discerned by the whole Meeting. You are the one person who is responsible to be listening deeply and authentically enough so that other people can hear and listen.

In other words, I believe that the clerk’s position is the most humble position in a meeting. Theirs is the position by which there is no position; they are shepherds or the “DJs” of the process itself, making sure that everyone in the community is able to do their best listening.

This is very challenging spiritual work and not something someone takes lightly or agrees to easily. They know that there will be challenging ego-work in this role. They also know how hard it is to not get hooked by one side vs. another, giving in easily to “positions” rather than listening and guiding process.

But this can be done in at least four ways:

By focusing intently on the process rather than the content under discussion. By helping to educate everyone else in the room about what they are supposed to be doing (thus taking some of the weight of the clerk to lead us or save us). By the clerk doing their own spiritual work around humility, listening, and giving up any pretenses to per-ordained decisions. By helping the Meeting to give up any per-ordained decisions and to enter into a business meeting “with hearts and minds clear” and ready to do the work together as a community.

The alternative is to continue to “dance the old” as Kester Brewin says, that is to say, to not take up this work of humility is to continue to play into the human propensity of tribalism, suspicion of others, and division around decisions.

Brewin writes:

“Only if I am still. Only if I have stopped what I was doing to listen and hold my breath and enter some spiritual apnea and wait. The perception of the new step will come only to those brave enough to stop dancing the old. The realization that we must descend this low peak will come only to those prepared to stop and take stock of their position. We fear that if we stopped for a week, a month, a service, a moment, we might be forgotten, or lose our momentum, weaken our profile, appear ill-thought-out and failing.

A number of years ago I joined an ad hoc committee, which was tasked with making some recommendations to the larger board we were on around a very challenging topic. I had a very clear stance and was not particularly willing to give it up under the guise that I felt morally justified in my position. When it came time for the committee to select a clerk, I realized that I needed to offer myself so that my voice would be taken out of play. Because I felt so clear that it was my way or the highway on this topic, there was no way I could be a good participant in the group, nor would I help the decision move smoothly because if there were any dissenters I was prepared to challenge them. In taking up the clerking role, I voluntarily laid all of that down and entered a different position in the group. It helped me to take the focus off my position and “the issue,” and instead focus in on the practice of listening and following the Quaker process. In doing so, a third way was able to emerge, our process through this very sticky situation was smooth, and we delivered a very solid recommendation in a timely manner.

The ability to let go of the old dance of taking sides and arguing the minutiae of the issues, rather than listening for the deeper, emerging truths allows Quaker process to be freed up to work more smoothly. Working smoothly is not always equal to speed, but often it means that it is working within the time constraints the community has placed upon it. Humility and the ability for the clerk to do their own spiritual work of laying down prejudices helps free the community to follow a smooth(er) process.

3. The Community’s Impact on Speed

I have primarily focused on the clerk’s role up to this point. Now I want to think about the rest of the group. In a sense, everyone should be clerking, as my friend John Helding, founding clerk of Quaker Voluntary Service, has said on more than one occasion. That is to say, what I have said above really should be true for everyone in the Meeting! You do that, and you’ll be amazed by the kind of flow one can have in a Quaker meeting for business!

Two ways everyone can clerk and help the flow of a business meeting:

A. Quaker Process as “Weak Link” Organizing

First, a majority of the group invests in becoming knowledgeable in the Quaker practice of group discernment. You do not need everyone to know how to practice Quaker process for it to work, but the more who know, the more who are invested in taking up the authentic work of being personally and corporately changed through this kind of process, the better the process becomes.