Understanding in common. That is the goal and the means of democracy. Agreement without common understanding is foolishness.
So the question is what methods lead people to common understanding.
First we must recognize situations that are shared. The lifeboat being the most iconic.
Quaker's have been practicing a form of meeting that reliably leads to common understanding and importantly avoids making decision without common understanding being achieved first.
Some aspects of situations can be understood in a single meeting, other aspect require living in the culture. Perhaps we could begin by asking of each of the Six Questions, "Do we have a shared understanding of this aspect of our situation?"
Cave Drawings aid common understanding.