How to achieve a workable consensus within time limits

The Delphi Technique was originally conceived as a way to obtain the
opinion of experts without necessarily bringing them together face to face.
"In Educating for the New World Order" by Bev Eakman, the reader finds
reference upon reference for the need to preserve the illusion that
there is lay, or community, participation in the decision making
process, while in fact lay citizens are being squeezed out.
A specialized use of this technique was developed for teachers and is
called the "Alinsky Method."

The setting or group is, however, immaterial. The point is that
people in groups tend to share a certain knowledge base and display
certain identifiable characteristic (known as group dynamics).  This
allows for a special application of a basic technique.

The change agent, or facilitator, goes through the motions of acting
as an organizer, getting each person in the target group to elicit
expression of their concerns about a program, project, or policy in
question. The facilitator listens attentively, forms task forces,
urges everyone to make lists and so on. While she is doing this, the
facilitator learns something about each member of the target group.
He/she identifies the leaders, the loud mouths, as well as those who
frequently turn sides during the argument-the weak or non-committal.
Suddenly, the amiable facilitator becomes the devils advocate. He/she
dons his professional agitator hat.

Using the divide and conquer technique, he/she manipulates one group
opinion against the other. This is accomplished by manipulating those
who are out of step to appear ridiculous, unknowledgeable,
inarticulate, or dogmatic. He/she wants certain members of the group
to become angry, thereby forcing tensions to accelerate. The
facilitator is well trained in psychological manipulation. She/he is
able to predict the reactions of each group member. Individuals in
opposition to the policy or program will be shut out of the group.

The method works. It is very effective with parents, teachers, school
children, and any community group. The targets rarely, if ever, know
that they are being manipulated. If they do suspect this is happening,
they do not know how to end the process. The desired result is for
group polarization, and for the facilitator to become accepted as a
member of the group and group process. He/she will then throw the
desired idea on the table and ask for opinions during discussion.
Very soon his/her associates from the divided group begin to adopt
the idea as if it were their own, and pressure the entire group to accept
the proposition.

The technique is a very unethical method of achieving consensus on a
controversial topic in group settings. It requires well trained
professionals who deliberately escalate tension among group members,
pitting one faction against the other, so as to make one viewpoint
appear ridiculous so the other becomes sensible whether such is
warranted or not.

Disrupting the Delphi
by Lynn M Stuter

The Delphi Technique is being used at all levels of government to
move meetings to pre-set conclusions. For the purposes of this
dissertation, facilitator references anyone who has been trained in
the use of the Delphi Technique and who is running a meeting.
There are three steps to diffusing the Delphi Technique when
facilitators want to steer a group in a specific direction.

1. Always be charming. Smile. Be pleasant. Be Courteous. Moderate
your voice so as not to come across as belligerent or aggressive.
2. Stay focused. If at all possible, write your question down to help
you stay focused.
Facilitators, when asked questions they don't want to answer, often
digress from the issue raised and try to work the conversation around
to where they can make the individual asking the question look
foolish, feel foolish, appear belligerent of aggressive.
The goal is to put the one asking the question on the defensive. Do
not fall for this tactic.
Always be charming, thus deflecting any insinuation, innuendo, etc.
that may be thrown at you in their attempt to put you on the
defensive, but bring them back to the question asked. If they
rephrase your question into an accusatory statement (a favorite
tactic) simply state, "That is not what I stated. What I asked
was...(repeat your question)."
3. Be persistent. If putting you on the defensive doesn't work,
facilitators often resort to long, drawn out dissertations on some
off the wall and usually unrelated or vaguely related subject that
drags on for several minutes. During that time, the crowd or group
usually loses focus on the question asked (which is the intent). Let
them finish with their dissertation or expose. Then nicely with focus
and persistence, state, "But you didn't answer my question. My
question is-and repeat your question.
Always be charming, stay focused and be persistent.
Never, under any circumstance, become angry. Anger directed at the
facilitator will immediately make the facilitator the victim. This
defeats the purpose which is to make you the victim. The goal of the
facilitator is to make those they are facilitating like them, alienating
anyone who might pose a threat to the realization of their agenda
(people with fixed belief systems, who know what they believe
and stand on what they believe are obvious threats).
If the participant becomes the victim, the facilitator loses face and
favor with the crowd. This is why crowds are broken up into groups of
seven or eight, why objections are written on cards, not voiced aloud
where they are open to public discussion and public debate. It's
called crowd control.

It is always good to have someone else, or two or three others who
know the Delphi Technique dispersed throughout the crowd who, when
the facilitator digresses from the question, will stand up and say
nicely, "But you didn't answer that lady's/gentleman's question."
The facilitator, even if suspecting you are together, certainly will
not want to alienate the crowd by making that accusation. Sometimes
it only takes one occurrence of this type for the crowd to figure out
what is going on. Sometimes it takes more than one.
If you have an organized group, meet before the meeting to
strategize.  Everyone should know their part. Meet after the meeting
to analyze what went right, what went wrong and why, and what needs
to happen the next time around. Never meet during the meeting. One of
the favorite tactics of the facilitator if the meeting is not going the way
they want and they are meeting measurable resistance, is to call a recess.
During the recess, the facilitator and his/her spotters (people who wander
the room during the course of the meeting) watch the crowd to see who
congregates where, especially those who have offered measurable
resistance. If the resistors congregate in one place, a spotter will usually
gravitate to that group to join in the conversation and will report
back to the facilitator. When the meeting resumes, the facilitator
will steer clear of those who are resistors. Do not congregate. Hang
loose and work the crowd. Move to where the facilitators or spotters
are. Listen to what they have to say, but do not gravitate to where
another member of your team is.
This strategy also works in a face to face, one on one, meeting with
anyone who has been trained in how to use the Delphi Technique.

From a representative republic to a participatory democracy

With the advent of education reform, the ensuing turmoil among the
citizenry, and the grassroots research that has been sparked
therefrom, a consistent pattern with respect to public participation
and input has emerged, giving cause for alarm among people who
cherish the form of government established by our founding fathers.
Recent events, both inside and outside education, have brought the
emerging picture into focus.

In the not too distant past the hiring of a consultant by the City of
Spokane to the tune of $47,000 to facilitate the direction of city
government brought a hue and cry from the populace at large. Eerily,
this scenario held great similarity to what has been happening in
education reform.
The final link came in the form of an editorial comment made by Chris
Peck regarding the "Pizza papers." The editorial talked about how
groups of disenfranchised citizens were brought together to enter
into a discussion of what they felt (as opposed to know) needed to be
changed at the local level. The outcome of the compilation of those
discussions influenced the writing of the city/county charter.
Sounds innocuous enough. But lets examine this a little closer. Let's
walk through the scenario that occurs in these facilitated meetings.

First, about the facilitator.
The facilitator is hired to facilitate the meeting. While his/her job
is supposedly non-directive, neutral, non-judgmental, the opposite is
actually true. The facilitator is there to move the meeting to a preset
conclusion. This is done through a process known as the Delphi
Technique, developed by the RAND Corporation for the U.S.
Department of Defense as a psychological warfare weapon in the 50s
and 60s. Comforting, no doubt. With this established, lets move on
to the semantics of the meeting.
It is imperative to the success of the agenda that the participants
like the facilitator. Therefore, the facilitator first works the crowd to
cause dis-equilibrium-establishing a bad guy/good guy scenario.
Anyone who might not agree with the facilitator must be seen by the
participants as the bad guy, the facilitator the good guy. This is
done by seeking out those who might not agree with the facilitator
and making them look foolish, inept, or aggressive, sending a clear
message to the audience that if they don't want the same treatment to
keep quiet.
The facilitator is well trained in how to recognize and exploit many
different psychological truisms to do this. At the point the opposition
has been identified and alienated, the facilitator becomes
the good guy-a friend-and the agenda and direction of the meeting is
established without the audience ever being aware of it.
Next, the attendees are broken up into smaller groups-usually of
seven or eight people-each group with a facilitator. Discussion
ensues wherein the participants are encouraged to discuss preset
issues, the group facilitator employing the same tactics as the lead
facilitator. Usually participants are encouraged to put on paper
their ideas and disagreements, these to be later complied by others.
Herein lies a very large problem. Who compiles what is written on the
sheets of paper, note cards, etc.? When you ask the participants, you
usually get,
"Well, they compiled the results."
Who is "they?"
"Well, those running the meeting."
Oh-h! The next question: How do you know that what you wrote on
your sheet of paper was incorporated into the final outcome?  The
answer you usually get is, "Well, you know, I've wondered about that,
because what I wrote doesn't seem to be reflected here. I guess my
viewpoint was in the minority."

And there you have the crux of the situation. If you have fifty people
in a room, each writes his/her ideas and dislikes on a sheet of
paper, to be compiled later into a final outcome, each individual
has no idea of what any other individual wrote. How do you know
that the final outcome reflects anyone's input? The answer is that
you don't.
The same scenario holds when there is a facilitator recording your
comments on paper. But the participants usually don't question this,
figuring instead that their viewpoint was in the minority and thus
not reflected.
So why have the meetings at all if the outcome is already
established?
Because it is imperative to the continued well being of the agenda
that the people be facilitated into ownership of the preset outcome.
If people believe the idea is theirs, they support it; if the people
believe the idea is being foisted on them, they will resist.
Likewise, it is imperative to the continued well being of the agenda
that the people perceive that their input counts.
This scenario is being used very effectively to move meetings to
preset conclusions, effectively changing our form of government from
a representative form of government in which individuals are elected
to represent the people to a "participatory democracy" in which
citizens, selected at large, are facilitated into ownership of preset
outcomes, perceiving that their input resulted therein.
The reality is the outcome was already established by others, but
this is not apparent to the citizen participants.