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The decision-making process of a conference is the means by which a gathering of people develop and select a common direction which implies some action for them. Some conferences are called purely for the purpose of decision-making, while others make decisions only passively. No matter how weak or how strong the emphasis, however, there is in every gathering a decisional aspect which cannot be ignored. The decision-making dynamic is holding a creative tension between participation and facilitation. The tension which occurs in decision-making is a tension between conference input and output. New input is from participants of diverse perspectives and frames of reference, while output is required of the facilitators in a coherent, unified body. When this tension loses its force, there may be false peace on the side of the participants or on the side of the facilitators, but it is then probable that nothing new will be created. When tension is removed by dominance of the participation dynamic, a conference becomes an airing of views without conclusion or focus, which is difficult to convey to non-participants and does little to change the thinking of anyone. When tension is removed by dominance of the facilitation dynamic, a conference is aimed toward a direction--perhaps adopted prior to the event itself--which participants may agree to or not.
In contrast can be a conference an occasion in which struggle takes place. Subtly or loudly there is a conflict the articulation of directions, suggestions, reports and proposals on the one hand, and the need to develop as detailed and focused a report as possible. It is always possible to determine the long-range effectiveness of a conference's decision-making by seeing how thoroughly the decisions made by the conference are implemented.