A very brief introduction to sociocracy

Sociocracy upholds two fundamental principles:

organisational effectiveness, i.e. realising the organisation’s aim and purpose effectively and efficiently; and,

the equivalence/equality between organisational members, honouring everyone’s voice. No-one is silenced, no-one is ignored, no-one is oppressed, no-one holds power over another. In sociocracy there is safe, protected time for everyone to speak and to have their voice respected and their views considered.

(Please note that this view is not universally shared among sociocracy enthusiasts or practitioners.)

Sociocracy serves and realises these principles through three key features (the ‘pillars’ in slide 1):

In the rest of the presentation, we’re going to look at each of the three ‘pillars’ of sociocracy successively.

In a co-housing community, a circle may be responsible for ensuring that the roads in the community are kept in good condition and unobstructed by snow, fallen tree branches, debris etc. In a non-for-profit organisation, a circle may be responsible for creating and maintaining the organisation’s website.

The aim of a circle needs to be very specific because, in sociocratic circle meetings, proposals, decisions, arguments, discussions are all related back to the aim of the circle and the way they support and promote this aim or undermine and obstruct it.

Referring again to John Buck and Sharon Villines’s book (2007; p.124):

Policy decisions in a sociocratic circle are made by consent. Consenting to a proposal means: “I have no objection to this proposal and I am willing to collaborate with the other circle members to put this policy in place.” Having ‘no objection’ does not mean that you think that this is the best solution possible or imaginable or that it ticks all the boxes that are important to you. It means that this proposal is ‘good enough’ to be put in place for now until it is reviewed, revised and changed. Generally, we aim to ‘tweak’ how thing work, then monitor how things are turning out and then to ‘fine-tune’ and ‘fine-tune’ again on the basis of our experiences, measurement or feedback.

To consent to a proposal, it does not need to be your first preference. It just needs to be within your ‘range of tolerance’ as illustrated in slide 2 above. A way to illustrate this might be this: if somebody offers me ice-cream, I may wish that it were strawberry (first preference). But if they only had lemon, I would still eat it (lemon is within my range of tolerance). If they offered me liquorice, I would have to refuse it because I am allergic to liquorice (it would be outside my range of tolerance).

In sociocracy, to object to a proposal means: “if this proposal goes through my work towards the realisation of the circle’s aim and purpose is compromised or impeded”. Objections in sociocracy must be ‘paramount’ and ‘reasoned’. ‘Paramount’ means that they must be related to the circle’s work and purpose. ‘Reasoned’ means that they need to be in the form of a rational, sensible, intelligible argument understood by others.

Objections are not seen as roadblocks and obstacles. Objecting essentially means: “I want to work effectively and this proposal will negatively affect my work so we need to figure out how to make this proposal better”. Objections are not negative. They are seen as positive and constructive; they say ‘yes to working’. Our aim as a group is that a proposal is good enough so that everyone can work.

Objections are encouraged in sociocracy. Facilitators are encouraged to be alert to the reservations, hesitations, doubts, niggles, uncertainties, discomfort expressed by circle members in verbal and non-verbal ways. Facilitators are encouraged to ‘harvest’ objections actively and not to disregard any signs that people may harbour silent reservations.

Nested Circles: Sub-circles and Super-circles

People that work together form a circle. Every circle has a domain, its area of authority. Circles make decisions about everything within their domain and other circles cannot interfere unless their own work is somehow affected by the activities of the other circles. Example: Circle 1(the top left circle in Slide 3) may be the Grade 1 Teachers in a sociocratic school; circle 2 (the bottom left circle in Slide 3) may be the Grade 2 Teachers. Circle 1 has exclusive authority over teaching Grade 1 pupils (e.g. over the curriculum) while Circle 2 has exclusive authority over teaching Grade 2 pupils. Circle 1 and Circle 2 are not linked with each other but they coordinate between them and they deal with things that they need to manage together, e.g. a shared library or a gym, through Circle 3 to the right (a super-circle with Circle 1 and Circle 2 as it sub-circles).

Double-linking between sub-circles and super-circles

Double-linking is a feature unique to sociocracy. Sub-circles link to super-circles via a double link. The sub-circle on the left in Slide 4 has a ‘leader’ (who may be appointed by the super-circle or may be elected by the sub-circle). The actual content of the role of the ‘operational leader’ is determined by the circle through consent. In terms of linking the circles, the role of the ‘leader’ is to communicate the needs of the super-circle to the sub-circle and to carry information from the super-circle to the sub-circle (reporting down). In Slide 4, the ‘leader’ is represented by the bottom red person with the arrow pointing left.

The sub-circle also has a ‘delegate’ elected by the members of the sub-circle. (There are other roles in a sociocratic circle e.g. facilitator and secretary, but we will not cover them here.) The ‘delegate’ in Slide 4 is represented by the top red person with the arrow pointing right. The ‘delegate’’s role is to communicate the needs of the sub-circle to the super-circle and to carry information from the sub-circle to the super-circle (reporting up).

Both the leader and the delegate are full members of both the sub-circle and the super-circle. Both have objection rights in both circles so that no circle is lording it over another circle. The right-hand super-circle cannot decide anything without the consent of the leader and delegate who are also in the left-hand sub-circle. The circles ideally work as extensions of one another.

Also ‘leader’ and ‘delegate’ being full members of both circles take part in the election process for both roles. The leader of the sub-circle takes part in the election process of the sub-circle for the ‘delegate’ role and she must give her consent. And the ‘delegate’ takes part in the election process of the super-circle for the ‘leader’ and she must gives her consent (in the case of organisations in which leaders are elected by ‘higher-order’ circles).

Leadership (i.e. sensing, steering, and evaluating) as a distributed process throughout the organisation rather than concentrated in certain roles or titles (e.g. senior management, chief strategy officer etc.)

Feedback is a central feature of sociocracy. It is an integral design principle of sociocratic organisations and a universal process applicable in all organisational activities, decisions, and roles, at all levels.

For example at the level of a single meeting: a) we plan a meeting, e.g. collectively putting together an agenda, agreeing the time and place; b) we hold the meeting; c) the closing round of sociocratic meetings is an evaluation round of the effectiveness, efficacy and quality of the meeting, i.e. “Did we achieve our aims in this meeting?; “What was the quality of the facilitation?”; “What did we think went well and what do we think we could do better?”; What was the quality of the conversation?”; “Were people’s needs met?”; “Were all the issues covered adequately?”; “What did we appreciate about this meeting?”. The secretary of the circle records in the meeting’s minutes the comments made at the closing round so that any issues can be considered and addressed in later meetings.

Sociocracy encourages the institution of systematic ways of capturing meaningful information about important aspects of organisational functioning. For example, at the level of a team’s operational performance, Buck and Villines (2007: 165) give the following example:

Equally, when making policy decisions, circles are encouraged to ask the question: “how will we know that this policy is working well?”; “what information will tell us that this is a policy we could keep and not change or discard?”; “what evaluation system do we need to have in place to assess this policy?”.

Circles

and then the circles

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