This is a decision that is made by one person alone, but has been discussed with others (usually those affected by the decision) beforehand. The opinions, advice, recommendations, hints, feelings, etc. of others are to be heard and considered, but they do not have to be taken into account or even “integrated”. The decision is up to the individual.
Examples:
This method has become very well known through the book “Reinventing Organisations” by Frederic Laloux. In it he describes that the company AES named it as a “consulting process” [Laloux2015:99] (see also the Wiki about it).
In Teal organisations it is virtually the default method for making decisions, because there each person is authorised to make all the decisions they need to, as long as they have
have been consulted.
It is interesting to note that in the above-mentioned wiki, “Decision Making” is sorted under “Daily organisational practices”. This suggests that it is about the “small”, operational decisions. It is also the case that “systemic consensus” is used in organisational methods such as S3 and Holacracy for “larger”, structural changes (e.g. changes to the decision-making mechanism itself or questions of organisational structure), where (serious) objections have to be integrated. This is, in effect, group decision-making aimed at consenT. This is taken into account in our concept in methods 3-5 (see also KonsenT vs KonsenS).
[Laloux2015] Laloux, Frederic: “Reinventing Organisations”, Vahlen, 2015, ISBN 978 3 8006 4913 6