An essential methodology for driving grassroots democratic decisions—particularly within cooperatives, sociocratic organizations, and community-driven projects—does not originate from the Anglo-American world. It was developed back in the 1980s in Austria by two mathematicians and software developers: Systemic Consensing.
This process operates on a fundamentally different logic than traditional voting. When a challenge arises, the team formulates and discusses multiple proposed solutions. Instead of voting for approval or enthusiasm, participants measure their personal resistance. Each participating thinker assigns up to 10 resistance points per option. The scores are tallied, and the proposal with the lowest collective resistance wins. This effectively prevents a simple majority from steamrolling a minority, ensuring no group is forced into a compromise they fundamentally oppose.
Diana Osterhage actively applied this decision-making framework years ago when co-founding a nationwide political party. At UNO.TEAM, we will gradually adopt Systemic Consensing across our operations, teach it in our courses, and embed it as a core pillar of our Reallabor Plagwitz project.
