Consensus seeks to establish guidelines not policies. Paul Petzoldt, one of America’s most accomplished mountaineers, was famous for saying “Rules are for Fools.” He founded a school which sends thousands students and corporate teams on wilderness expeditions across the globe, empowering their instructors with guidelines, training, and wisdom, but not a single mandated rule. Policy is much like a ship set on course without the ability to alter course for weather or rocks or other ships. Meanwhile, guidelines have direction, bounds, and an agreed destination, without a narrowly fixed path to arrive. Guidelines are essential for consensus communities as they focus communal decisions on creating a vision and direction, rather than a tedious code of laws.
