 | 1.2. The paradox of teaching self-governance | |
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| ↢ | Chapter 1. Sociocracy: Why, What and Who? | ↣ |
In self-governance, we want groups to decide for themselves how to govern themselves. Isn’t it ironic to tell people how to self-govern themselves? That is a concern we deal with on a daily basis. How can we be helpful and share our experiences without imposing a fixed system? The following pages describe what we do with this paradox of teaching self-governance.
To us, running organizations in alignment with principles is more important than a particular strategy. For example, running an organization where all needs are considered is more important than performing a consent round ‘by the book’ – even this book! The consent round is only a tool to ensure the principle of equivalence. If readers can find a better way to live the principle of equivalence than what we are presenting here (without compromising effectiveness), do it. In that case, please share so others can benefit as well! To us, sociocracy is a mindset: the mindset that all needs matter, always. The needs of those who we serve, the needs of those who work together, the needs of all interdependent life on the planet, and the needs of the generations to come.
Why write a book full of tools if only the basic principles count? There are four reasons:
Building skills. We notice that most people ask for a ‘boxed set’ of good practices. Finding the right tools and combining them seems daunting for people who are new to shared power – not because it is so hard to do, but because most of us lack experience.
Let’s not reinvent the wheel. If people are in organizations because the organization’s mission is dear to their heart then developing a governance system is not at the center of their attention. In that spirit, this book is our offer to share everything we know about shared power and how to do it. It’s what we do and we have a lot of experience with governance.
We deeply care about equivalence. Having no system or just a vague system means there is a lot of space between the lines that will be filled by daily life in organizations. Like the water analogy: power will flow somewhere. Without being intentional about equivalence, power will flow back into the hands of a few.
We write in detail. The reason we do that is because we hear frequent requests for practical information. Oftentimes, we offer several tools to choose from. We do not mean this book to be prescriptive. If we understand the principles and the tools, we will be more able to use them and to adjust them to our context and the specific moment.
Sociocracy is not an all-or-nothing approach. Readers can use as few or many features and tools as they want and they can change their minds over time. No one owns the individual tools. People do what they do. There is no right and wrong. There are only more and less effective tools for managing and governing ourselves. In this spirit, here is what we want.
We want readers to understand the design principles.
We want to offer readers practical guidance in how to put the principles into practice.
We want to empower readers to tailor the tools to their organization’s needs.
The good practices in sociocracy fit very well together and mutually reinforce each other. For example, double-linking (see section Section 2.4, “Double-linking” on page Section 2.4, “Double-linking”) makes a circle structure more transparent. Decisions in smaller groups make it easier to operate on consent decision making. Any area left out will be filled in otherwise, and sometimes by practices that do not effectively support equivalence. We recommend taking all that seems useful, and to keep the eyes open for signs indicating that the governance method might have areas that need improvement.
We have devoted this time in our lives to spreading sociocracy because we are convinced that it is an excellent set of principles and tools, and we have picked the tools that we are describing in this book based on years of experience, observing different tools and techniques and their impact. Governance is a highly complex construct. If one makes a change in one spot, one might shift the balance in a different place. For that reason, we recommend to stay as close as possible to the basic tools and to use as many of them as possible. The tools one uses can easily be adapted – as long as one measures the success of your adaptation. As practitioners gain experience, they can be more flexible with the tools.
Consent is the default decision-making method in sociocracy. Consent means that if I make a proposal to the group, my proposal will be approved if no one in the group has an objection to it. Consent will be addressed deeply in this manual but this description might suffice for now.
By consent, a group can decide to do anything. We often jokingly say, you want a dictator for your organization? We can decide that by consent. (We recommend that the dictator role have a term end, however!) Groups can decide by consent to vote. Groups decide what their governance system looks like at all times. The only thing one cannot do is ignore reasoned objections.
So let’s say a group decides to use only the organizational structure from sociocracy and to combine it with majority rule as your decision-method. That is allowed -- because it is your decision. Here is the catch: We have talked to countless organizations. When they struggle around governance, it is always for either or both of these reasons: (1) They have gaps in their implementation, or (2) They have not invested enough resources in education.
So we hereby say it: we want groups to take full ownership of your own governance system. And we want to give them the most exhaustive and accurate and experience-based information we can possibly give because we think this is an excellent set of principles and most tweaks we have seen were detrimental.
Figure 1.4. How to pronounce sociocracy
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