Finding the “Sense of the Meeting”: Decision Making Through Silence Among Quakers

Abstract

Decision making through silence may seem counterintuitive. However, many unprogrammed Quakers believe that their deliberative process of finding the ''sense of the meeting'' in monthly administrative meetings is based in silence. Drawing on the ethnography of communication and cultural discourse theory, this article analyzes recordings of naturally occurring interaction during Quaker meetings for business. Building on research on silence as generative, it argues that, in this context, communal silence plays an active role in decision making through a process understood to take precedence over its outcome. This article contributes to an understanding of the functions of silence in different cultural contexts. The analysis suggests that in the context of Quaker meetings for business, silences serve to prepare participants to take part in decision making and also structure the unfolding of the decision-making process, as participants wait and listen for guidance. The article also explores the situated processes of community formation embodied in these meetings.

Contemporary Rhetorical Citizenship

“…Their motive for silence is to privilege a means of demonstrating respect and a willingness to listen to "inner voices" before speaking. Elizabeth Molina- Markham (2014) corroborates this orientation toward silence as a process in suggesting "A cultural premise could be formulated as: Silence during meeting for business prepares participants to participate in spiritual decision making and allows space for participants to listen for a decision to emerge" (p. 170). While this example does not suggest a role within public space, it gives support to the sense in which silence functions as a rhetorical device for, in this instance, a social good of value to the congregants.…”

Organizational ethnography and religious organizations: the case of Quaker decision-making

“…The need to work across binary boundaries becomes particularly obvious and pressing where the organizational practices of spiritual/religious organizations themselves break down those boundariesfor example, by attaching religious significance to the most "mundane" of decisions or of organizational practices. We have highlighted the contribution of the prior ethnographic work on Quakers, in many cases done by Quakers (for example, Collins, 2002Collins, , 2009Meads, 2007), and existing work on Quaker organizations (for example, Burton, 2017;Mace, 2012;Molina-Markham 2014;Muers and Grant, 2017). This existing body of work, read in the context of the wider literature on Quakerism and the study of management and spirituality, shows that Quakerism in general and QBM in particular requires this kind of boundary-crossing if it is to be adequately understood.…”

“…Several of the key questions that are likely to affect the use of organizational ethnography in the study of religious/spiritual organizations have arisen in existing studies of the religious group on which we focus in this paperthe Religious Society of Friends (Quakers). Due to the fact that many of the scholars doing research on Quakers are Quakers themselves, one of the core issues discussed is the insider/outsider dichotomy within Quaker research (see Allen 2017; Collins 2002;Meads 2007;Molina-Markham 2014;Nesbitt 2002). Some would argue that "that there is something in religion that clearly and definitely distinguishes the insider from the outsider" (Stringer 2002, 3), whereas others are of the opinion that problematizing the distinction in fact essentializes both the insider and outsider (Collins 2002).…”

Spiritual Practice and Management Education Pedagogy: Exploring the Philosophical Foundations of Three Spiritual Traditions

“…Among Quakers, silence is believed to create the ideal framing for spiritual attainment and development (Molina-Markham, 2014) and is perceived as a channel through which the divine can enter hearts and minds. Silence also acts as a form of embodied stillness that facilitates deep listening and connectedness among a group.…”