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Using the Delphi Technique to Achieve Consensus
How it is leading us away from representative government to an illusion of citizen participation
In group settings, the Delphi Technique is an unethical method of achieving consensus on controversial topics. It requires well-trained professionals, known as "facilitators" or "change agents," who deliberately escalate tension among group members, pitting one faction against another to make a preordained viewpoint appear "sensible," while making opposing views appear ridiculous. In her book Educating for the New World Order, author and educator Beverly Eakman makes numerous references to the need of those in power to preserve the illusion that there is "community participation in decision-making processes, while in fact lay citizens are being squeezed out." The setting or type of group is immaterial for the success of the technique. The point is that, when people are in groups that tend to share a particular knowledge base, they display certain identifiable characteristics, known as group dynamics, which allows the facilitator to apply the basic strategy. The facilitators or change agents encourage each person in a group to express concerns about the programs, projects, or policies in question. They listen attentively, elicit input from group members, form "task forces," urge participants to make lists, and in going through these motions, learn about each member of a group. They are trained to identify the "leaders," the "loud mouths," the "weak or non-committal members," and those who are apt to change sides frequently during an argument. Suddenly, the amiable facilitators become professional agitators and "devil's advocates." Using the "divide and conquer" principle, they manipulate one opinion against another, making those who are out of step appear "ridiculous, unknowledgeable, inarticulate, or dogmatic." They attempt to anger certain participants, thereby accelerating tensions. The facilitators are well trained in psychological manipulation. They are able to predict the reactions of each member in a group. Individuals in opposition to the desired policy or program will be shut out. The Delphi Technique works. It is very effective with parents, teachers, school children, and community groups. The "targets" rarely, if ever, realize that they are being manipulated. If they do suspect what is happening, they do not know how to end the process. The facilitator seeks to polarize the group in order to become an accepted member of the group and of the process. The desired idea is then placed on the table and individual opinions are sought during discussion. Soon, associates from the divided group begin to adopt the idea as if it were their own, and they pressure the entire group to accept their proposition.
Consistent use of this technique to control public participation in our political system is causing alarm among people who cherish the form of government established by our Founding Fathers. Efforts in education and other areas have brought the emerging picture into focus. In the not-too-distant past, the city of Spokane, in Washington state, hired a consultant to the tune of $47,000 to facilitate the direction of city government. This development brought a hue and cry from the local population. The ensuing course of action holds an eerie similarity to what is happening in education reform. A newspaper editorial described how groups of disenfranchised citizens were brought together to "discuss" what they felt needed to be changed at the local government level. A compilation of the outcomes of those "discussions" influenced the writing of the city/county charter. That sounds innocuous. But what actually happened in Spokane is happening in communities and school districts all across the country. Let's review the process that occurs in these meetings. First, a facilitator is hired. While his job is supposedly neutral and non-judgmental, the opposite is actually true. The facilitator is there to direct the meeting to a preset conclusion. The facilitator begins by working the crowd to establish a good-guy-bad-guy scenario. Anyone disagreeing with the facilitator must be made to appear as the bad guy, with the facilitator appearing as the good guy. To accomplish this, the facilitator seeks out those who disagree and makes them look foolish, inept, or aggressive, which sends a clear message to the rest of the audience that, if they don't want the same treatment, they must keep quiet. When the opposition has been identified and alienated, the facilitator becomes the good guy - a friend - and the agenda and direction of the meeting are established without the audience ever realizing what has happened. Next, the attendees are broken up into smaller groups of seven or eight people. Each group has its own facilitator. The group facilitators steer participants to discuss preset issues, employing the same tactics as the lead facilitator.
That is the crux of the situation. If 50 people write down their ideas individually, to be compiled later into a final outcome, no one knows what anyone else has written. That the final outcome of such a meeting reflects anyone's input at all is highly questionable, and the same holds true when the facilitator records the group's comments on paper. But participants in these types of meetings usually don't question the process. Why hold such meetings at all if the outcomes are already established? The answer is because it is imperative for the acceptance of the School-to-Work agenda, or the environmental agenda, or whatever the agenda, that ordinary people assume ownership of the preset outcomes. If people believe an idea is theirs, they'll support it. If they believe an idea is being forced on them, they'll resist. The Delphi Technique is being used very effectively to change our government from a representative form in which elected individuals represent the people, to a "participatory democracy" in which citizens selected at large are facilitated into ownership of preset outcomes. These citizens believe that their input is important to the result, whereas the reality is that the outcome was already established by people not apparent to the participants.
Three steps can diffuse the Delphi Technique as facilitators attempt to steer a meeting in a specific direction.
Never become angry under any circumstances. Anger directed at the facilitator will immediately make the facilitator the victim. This defeats the purpose. The goal of facilitators is to make the majority of the group members like them, and to alienate anyone who might pose a threat to the realization of their agenda. People with firm, fixed beliefs, who are not afraid to stand up for what they believe in, are obvious threats. If a participant becomes a victim, the facilitator loses face and favor with the crowd. This is why crowds are broken up into groups of seven or eight, and why objections are written on paper rather than voiced aloud where they can be open to public discussion and debate. It's called crowd control. At a meeting, have two or three people who know the Delphi Technique dispersed through the crowd so that, when the facilitator digresses from a question, they can stand up and politely say: "But you didn't answer that lady/gentleman's question." Even if the facilitator suspects certain group members are working together, he will not want to alienate the crowd by making accusations. Occasionally, it takes only one incident of this type for the crowd to figure out what's going on. Establish a plan of action before a meeting. Everyone on your team should know his part. Later, analyze what went right, what went wrong and why, and what needs to happen the next time. Never strategize during a meeting. A popular tactic of facilitators, if a session is meeting with resistance, is to call a recess. During the recess, the facilitator and his spotters (people who observe the crowd during the course of a meeting) watch the crowd to see who congregates where, especially those who have offered resistance. If the resistors congregate in one place, a spotter will gravitate to that group and join in the conversation, reporting what was said to the facilitator. When the meeting resumes, the facilitator will steer clear of the resistors. Do not congregate. Instead gravitate to where the facilitators or spotters are. Stay away from your team members. This strategy also works in a face-to-face, one-on-one meeting with anyone trained to use the Delphi Technique. |
We have lots of facilitators here on FR especially for Global Warming.
People are divided up into groups and assigned a "task" (Oboma did this, and the Washington idiots actually did what he told them to do!), but the "task" is irrelevant. The "task" is designed to find out who the leaders are and who the followers are within the groups. The "speaker" manipulates the group by pitting the pros against the cons, and supports the side they want to win. It becomes so intense, the "followers" change sides, and the "leaders" apposed to an issue are attacked until they back down or freak out. Their anger is then used against them.
In the end, most people believe they actually had an input in the outcome of the meeting.
The public schools use this on parents all the time.
Why can’t we use this technique ourselves? Why are we always on the defensive?
Excellent post.
Know the enemy!
The Delphi Technique was exactly what the Episcopal Church used to force the gay agenda. Surveys with predetermined outcomes followed by intensive "small groupings" were the favored tactics, patiently pursued for years.
One quibble I have with the suggested response: I think a tactic of "nip it in the bud" is best. Once the Delphi Technique is spotted, it must be exposed. If there is an attempt to hire a "facilitator" or commission a "feasibility study" (two buzz terms that immediately raise a rotten stink), attack on the grounds that this is wasteful spending, and ruthlessly expose the agenda.
Research who wants to hire the facilitator/consultant. Remind everyone what agendas those pushing the study/survey/facilitator have had in the past. Research the firm/individual involved. Are there ties to ACORN? Gay activist groups? Environmentalist wackos? Contact talk radio. Pack the meetings of those who will do the funding. Kill the beast in its crib.
Once you sit down in a "small group" with these folks, you have lost. Deny their legitimacy. Walking away is better than participating in a farce.
Like I recently told an old friend who asked me why I listen to NPR and Democracy Now - I listen to them for the same reason I learned Russian and listened to those bastards on the radio when I was in the Army. So I'll know what the sneaky little Communist f***ers are up to!!! You have to learn their language first.
Thanks for the post. Good info.
Interesting.
No doubt many of us have experienced this at the corporate level too.
Of course even in the absence of such codified detail, it should be clear to everyone that, for many years now, our form of gvt only provides the “apperance” of free choice by its participants.
What were our choices last fall? Left and Left-er?
And the melting of the switch boards prior to the original $700 bil bailout: Didn’t they do it anyway?
As with the lists of ideas cited in the article, were’nt “our represntatives” able to claim they got lots of call both for and against the bailout?
I suspect one cardinal foundation of Obama’s administration is the tacit buy-in he got by being elected. We’ve seen here recently that some people have “changed their mind” about him. But how many will come out and admit their error?
Oddly enough, I had to study this as part of my “management” training. It wasn’t called the Delphi technique, but it was about how as a manager, I should decide what I wanted to do, then bring in the group and use similar techniques to get them to come to the proper conclusion. It also had chapters about how to cut somebody off at the ankles if they didn’t get on board.
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scary
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Ping for later.
BFL
The "Delphi Technique" as described in the link is indeed insidious and its use is fraudulent.
However, you may from time to time read that the Delphi Technique was developed at the RAND Corporation. In fact, I recently read that, with the further statement that it was developed as a mind control technique.
WRONG!
Two of my friends at RAND did indeed develop something they called Delphi. However, it was not a method for forcing consensus. It was instead a means for efficiently extracting information and opinion from a group, without the frequent committee problems of dominant personality, social pressure from a majority, and settling on a least-common-denominator simply to get agreement.
RAND Delphi was conducted as follows.
Round one: people were asked to submit written statements relevant to the issue the group was to take up. These statements were summarized.
Round two: the consolidated list of statements was submitted to the group as a whole, with the identity of the originator of each statement eliminated (anonymity). Each group member responds, again anonymously (degree of agreement on a numerical rating scale; numerical response to the issue, etc.). These numerical responses are described statistically (usually median and upper and lower quartile).
Round three: The statements, and the statistical description, go to each group member, again anonymously. Each member again responds with a numerical estimate. Those whose estimates fall outside the quartiles must provide a reason why they believe 3/4 of the group is wrong.
Round four: each group member again receives the statements, and the statistics from round three. Each member gain provides a numerical response. Again, the "outliers" must provide reasons. In addition, anyone can provide an argument for or against the numerical estimates of the rest of the group.
The final result is the statements, the median estimates, and the quartiles.
Note this is not at all like what the group dynamics people call Delphi. The anonymity, the requirement to make numerical responses (even if on a rating scale), and the statistics that take into account the entire range of group opinion, eliminate forced consensus.
I have frequently used RAND Delphi in my profession as a technological forecaster. It is an excellent means for obtaining the opinions of a group of experts, giving both the central tendency of the group, and the degree of disagreement within the group. I usually conduct these studies by mail, as the technique lends itself to that quite readily.
When someone tries to tell you that the group dynamics session you're in was invented at RAND, they're telling you a lie. It's that simple.
Here's the earliest I could find on Delphi: The DELPHI Technique -- (Let's us Freepers Dominate Liberal Planning Groups), posted by Laz.
There's another from August of '99, So, have you been Delphi'd?