Full Endorsements

There is a belief in our culture that we have to choose between collaboration and efficiency. Miki Kashtan’s The Highest Common Denominator shows that there is an efficient path – perhaps the only truly efficient one – that gets everyone’s needs met. Every paragraph is packed with gold for aspiring and experienced facilitators. Rarely have I seen a book that is both this deeply grounded in overarching principles and at the same time this highly practical. — Frederic Laloux, author of Reinventing Organizations

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In my fifteen-year tenure as CEO of a multi-billion-dollar manufacturing company, I tried to create a collaborative culture. When signs of friction arose among and between one of my division managers and his own leadership team, I called on Miki to help diagnose and resolve the adverse impact that I sensed it was having on our effectiveness. Unexpectedly, I learned through Miki that I had some opportunities to improve on my own collaborative capabilities, which in turn helped address the overall issue. To reveal this, she worked with my team and me in a seemingly effortless way. Now, many years later, by reading Miki’s new book The Highest Common Denominator, I have been able to peek behind the curtains of her facilitation process and can see that her ability to draw out insights about the inner workings of organizations is not effortless at all, but rather based on a very conscious, thoughtful, and deliberate approach carefully developed over many years of practice and experimentation. This is good news. It means that Miki’s skills are transferable. I therefore highly recommend this book to anyone who wants to improve their facilitation skills by immersing themselves in what amounts to a master class taught by a teacher who not only has “been there and done that,” but who has creatively pioneered much of what she now feels moved to teach others. Incidentally, I also recommend Miki’s book to those who may not be facilitators (though we all are, at some level), but who simply want to augment their leadership perspectives by gaining insight into how facilitators work, the challenges they face, and the strategies they deploy. — Stuart W. Thorn, Retired President and CEO, Southwire Company

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I’ve been part of many activist movements and anarchist groups that aim to actively live out our principles, including how we make decisions together. As we try to do that, so many of us have found decision-making to be fraught with tension between individual autonomy and collective needs, between including everyone and actually getting things done. We may think the only options are consensus and majority voting, each with major drawbacks that can drain group energy or leave out key perspectives. Convergent Facilitation offers us another path. The Highest Common Denominator contains clear and accessible wisdom for making collaborative decisions, even with power differences in the room, and even when people seem totally stuck on opposite sides of an issue. — Mariam Z Gafforio, facilitator, community organizer, musician, and mom

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For 20 years Miki Kashtan has road tested ideas on how humankind can make the best collaborative decisions for all of us and other life with which we share the planet. The result is The Highest Common Denominator which clearly sets out a way to move ahead in places where only failure has lived before. Our currently farcical adoption of so-called democracy has driven us towards oligarchic decision makers who reject evidence in favour of ego. All too often this hierarchical model is replicated from the boardroom to the family with disastrous results. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Miki’s model of Convergent Facilitation is not that complicated. Through constant testing and refining, she has identified the key actions which need to be done right and, with insightful case studies, the book sets these out in detail. This book needs buying, reading and enacting by the weekend. — Peter Macfadyen, past Mayor and Leader of Frome Town Council and author of Flatpack Democracy, a DIY guide to independent politics

Twitter version: Humankind is making terrible decisions at every level from international to family. Our ‘winner takes all’ model is an unmitigated disaster that is quickly taking us towards extinction. This detailed guide to ‘Convergent Facilitation’ provides clear steps to another option. If you make decisions you need to read it.

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This book shows you how to have confidence in your self awareness and your inner learning edge to be transparent in how you serve the group as a convergent facilitator. It helps you to know your own inner experience moment by moment as a leader so you can bring your humanity skilfully to the group, especially when they may expect you to behave with authority, self-control and neutrality. You may also find it helpful for how to think and speak in terms of people who are currently beyond your skill level. You will deepen your practice and integrate richer capacities in Nonviolent Communication. — Mark Spain, Global Learning Australia

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Part instruction manual, part philosophy book, The Highest Common Denominator is an incredible contribution to the world of facilitation, decision making and group dynamics. Convergent Facilitation is not only a process of making decisions efficiently and collaboratively — it is a paradigm shift in how we work in groups. By creating space for all needs to be heard, inviting dissent without fear or animosity, and attending to the power dynamics that are in the room, Miki guides us through this revolutionary new way of collaboration. A must read for any leader or facilitator. — Kazu Haga, founder, East Point Peace Academy; author, Healing Resistance

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In these times of uncertainty and crisis, this book is a simple, straightforward, and deep introduction for those who want to master the tool of Convergent Facilitation. This process, born of Miki’s brilliance and vast experience, will steer us away from wasting time and accelerate our work for the Great Turning. — Joanna Macy, Ph.D., root teacher of the Work That Reconnects, author, and activist

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In an era of extreme polarization and intersecting crises, learning how to collaborate together effectively is the key to our survival. As someone dedicated to building belonging across difference, I find in The Highest Common Denominator practical tools and a concise roadmap for how we build this world together. Kashtan’s writing, grounded in experience, is a welcome departure from the standard operating procedures that got us into this mess… and an enticing invitation into the better world we know is possible. Highly recommended. — Brian Stout, co-curator, Building Belonging

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I was one of the participating stakeholder representatives in the custody dialogue group featured in chapter 7 of the book. At first I was skeptical as to whether consensus could ever be achieved given the level of distrust and profound disagreement between participants. Miki Kashtan’s Convergent Facilitation process was a transformative experience and helped bring us together to develop and enact bold and far-reaching legislation. This model should be followed by Congress and state legislatures, and this book now makes it accessible to everyone to learn and use. — Michael Dittberner, family law attorney

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Miki Kashtan generously shares her innovation, experience and knowledge in a practical yet heart-based book which uses a tried and tested facilitation method to transform group decision-making. Essential reading for our times. — Maria Arpa, Founder of the Centre for Peaceful Solutions and Executive Director of the Center for Nonviolent Communication

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Convergent Facilitation is without any doubt one of the most powerful and transformative processes I have worked with. I’ve directly experienced its ability to support people to come together fully and effectively, creating conditions for something very beautiful to emerge even when it looks impossible. I believe this book is immensely valuable, offering an in-depth guide that people will find clear and practical, enabling them to put these principles into action. There is so much in here that can support people working in a wide range of situations, whether using the full decision-making process or adapting different elements of the process to a specific context. I would go a long, long way to learn what Miki has articulated in these pages; I feel it’s crucial in a world that needs to work together to find a way through the crises we are facing. — Paul Kahawatte, Facilitator, mediator, and trainer supporting groups and projects working for social and environmental justice

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Appearing at a time when conventional politics operates by the lowest common denominators, Miki Kashtan’s book is a loving guide for those wanting to replace it with something more like government by the people. That means each of us, starting locally, where we live but dreaming big. Let’s not kid ourselves — this is tricky and no one ever taught us how to do it. Here’s a book that fatally weakens that last excuse. — Patrick Chalmers, author and filmmaker, All Hands On, a documentary series on radical democracy in action

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As someone who shares much in common with Miki, including a passion for creative collaboration, commitment to everyone’s leadership, allegiance to multipartiality, and grounded trust in the gifts that dissent can offer, I am delighted to recommend her book to both aspiring and seasoned facilitators. I especially want to celebrate Miki’s nuanced exploration of the gifts and challenges of facilitator transparency, as well as her powerful framing of self-awareness and self-connection as essential for developing our intuition as facilitators. Last but not least is the method itself: Miki’s offering of Convergent Facilitation as a potent tool for effective and productive group decision-making. May the blessings this book brings spread far and wide, helping group facilitation become the new literacy for the 21st century. — Rosa Zubizarreta, author, From Conflict to Creative Collaboration: A User’s Guide to Dynamic Facilitation

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In this time of urgently needed collective action, Miki Kashtan translates the expertise she’s built over her decades of facilitation experience into crucial guidance for learning how to operate not as individuals but as part of a whole. The lessons Kashtan imparts in this work push beyond mere inclusion, showing us how effective collaboration requires at core an ethos of belonging in taking on everything from everyday cooperation to the largest systemic challenges of our day. — john powell, director, Othering and Belonging Institure, UC Berkeley

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It’s so uplifting to see this book in print! I find Convergent Facilitation a very effective, comprehensive, yet efficient method for making decisions that include many people and perspectives at the same time. It builds on the best practices I have seen in the field while staying very practical and simple enough. This book provides what is most needed to spread the method: a detailed guide! A must-read not only for any community leader but for any team or organization aiming at bringing inclusivity into their operations. — Mariusz Truszkowski, CEO, Who Else, social and educational innovator

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The practice of Convergent Facilitation (CF) is a creatively effective way — and worldview! — to transform seriously different perspectives into collective accomplishment. This insightful book articulates CF’s textured nuances with uncanny detail while remaining grounded in its fundamental values of willingness, trust, purpose, taking needs seriously, commitment to the whole, and CF’s unique alchemical catalyst of “the noncontroversial essence.” We accompany CF’s remarkably self-aware innovator as she tracks subtle, unfolding dynamics and choice points in both herself and the groups she works with, offering us a vivid vicarious experience of navigating those shifting waters through the mind, heart and eyes of a master facilitator who is constantly learning — as she invites us to learn — what it means to truly help. — Tom Atlee, founder of the Co-Intelligence Institute and Wise Democracy Project

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This book is a gift. With clarity, compassion and no small amount of wisdom, Miki offers the reader a process that is as hope-giving as it could be transformative. Its message is that finding solutions that work for all is not only desirable but possible, and the process of Convergent Facilitation can help us make the possible real. In this, it represents a major breakthrough for human collaboration. Whether at home, in the workplace, or amidst social movements struggling for change, the tools in this book could be revolutionary. I long for all of us to have access to them. — Dr. Neil Howard, Prize Fellow in International Development, University of Bath

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Every social justice group struggles to balance democracy and efficiency. Miki has courageously shined a light on this tension and lovingly crafted a gem of a process to break through this obstacle. — Jonathan Rosenthal, Co-founder of Equal Exchange and Oke USA

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In her book, The Highest Common Denominator, Miki Kashtan deftly provides language for many of the things I’ve learned about facilitation through painful failures but didn’t have language for. Realizing the urgency for effective collaboration capable of meeting the needs of all, Convergent Facilitation reconfigures the relationships between leadership, process, and skillful participation. In doing so, Convergent Facilitation opens up a window into a vision of democracy that is something other than a six-hour meeting after which we are too tired to implement any decisions. Instead, democracy and democratic praxis becomes a space where we each take responsibility for the well-being of the whole and make decisions that meet the needs of everyone. I recommend this book to everyone–from new facilitators and activists to veterans–who want to harness collective genius for social change. — Aaron Goggans, writer, facilitator, and organizer with the Movement For Black Lives

Short version: This book opens up a window into a vision of democracy that is something other than a six-hour meeting after which we are too tired to implement any decision. It opens a path towards a democratic praxis where we all take responsibility for the whole and make decisions that meet the needs of everyone. A true gift. –Aaron Goggans, writer, facilitator, and organizer with the Movement For Black Lives

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For many years, I have benefited from being able to work directly with Miki as a mentor and teacher and have found the tools of Convergent Facilitation to be effective, accessible, and even miraculous. I am grateful that The Highest Common Denominator will make these tools widely available. Whether one is already committed to nonviolence or just looking for practical ways to break through decision-making gridlocks, this book can change the world. — Anne Symens-Bucher, Co-founder, Canticle Farm, Oakland

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At a time of increased polarization, The Highest Common Denominator brings a vision of hope. Specifically, it suggests that it’s possible to bring a diverse range of stakeholders impacted by a seemingly intractable challenge together, take them through a skilfully facilitated process of collective discernment, tap into the group’s creativity to come up with solutions no one thought existed, and finally reach a unanimous decision on a plan that will work for everyone. If, from the most local to global level, we were equipped to make decisions in this way, humanity would have a future. The Highest Common Denominator is for anyone who wants to increase their leadership capacity to help groups resolve their differences, move fast, and achieve lots. — Vérène Nicolas, facilitator, social justice educator and member of the Nonviolent Global Liberation collective

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If you only add one book to your library on facilitating meetings, on collaborative decision-making, or on conflict integration, please let this be that book. The ability to achieve high-quality decision-making under high-stakes conditions is one of the most important skills for the human family to develop on a broad scale. Our very survival as a species depends upon our capacity to thread the needle to achieve robust win/win decision-making, when win/lose or tragic lose/lose compromises seem to be the only viable options. The vitality, the freshness, and practicality that Miki Kashtan’s Convergent Facilitation model embodies are based on both deep scholarly rigor and poetic artfulness. This book is a gift to and a prayer for the future. — Victor Lee Lewis, MA, director of the Institute for Healing Justice Education and co-facilitator of the “Hard Conversations” online learning communities for racial justice

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Miki Kashtan has been my friend, collaborator, intellectual sparring partner, and fellow deep thinker. Through my years of knowing her, she has been a relentless (and yes, sometimes exasperating) seeker of the deep truth that underlies our entire society. Her journey to discover the fundamental nature of the society in which we all live, and a path that leads to a vision for a nonviolent, compassionate, and loving society, has been a blessing for us all. This book is a milestone on this journey. — Shariff Abdullah, author, Creating a World that Works for All