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Sociocracy combines consent decision-making, a decentralized system of authority and intentional processes to improve our decisions and processes over time into a governance system that supports effective and efficient process while increasing connection, listening and co-creation among members.
Sociocracy is used in businesses, communities, nonprofits, cooperatives, grassroots groups and in education. See the sociocracy resources on this page to get started.
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Download the free ebook and learn more! The eBook covers the basic aspects and tools of sociocracy – perfect for people who want to read to get a fairly comprehensive overview.
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Too busy for a date in your calendar? Learn on your own time with our Primer – a 75min video series. Includes links to examples and deeper reading. Start anytime.
Books from Sociocracy for All
Many Voices One Song
The practical sociocracy handbook written by the co-founders of Sociocracy For All. 300 pages full of real-life support!
Who Decides Who Decides?
How to start a group so everyone can have a voice!
Let’s Decide Together
The definitive guidebook for practicing sociocracy with children. Children can decide with sociocracy too!
Sociocracy topics
Each of these short summaries gives you an overview of the sociocracy resources for you to learn more.
More: Selection process | Writing proposals | Implementation
Making group decisions: consent
Consent is the default decision-making method in sociocracy. In consent, a decision is made when no circle member has an objection. Every person will consent if they can accept the proposal, and object if the proposal has negative implications with respect to the circle’s shared aim.
A group moves to consent in the consent process: presenting the proposal and clarifying questions, quick reactions and a round of consent/objections.
Different from blocking a proposal in consensus decision-making, objections are welcomed as valuable information and they can be integrated by modifying the proposal, its term or its measurements.
Explore the language of consent.
Deepen your understanding by viewing the Visual Thesaurus map for Consent
Circles and roles: who decides what?
Decisions are made in circles, a defined team of people working together towards their circle’s aim. Circle members make collective policy decisions in their domain and they define operational roles to empower individuals to take on responsibility and circle roles to self-manage their circle.
Circles are connected through parent circle/sub-circle relationships of nested domains, leading to a system where everything can be decided locally in the system, without centralizing power at the center. To make sure two circles are connected, we double-link them with two people as members in both circles.
Sociocracy resources on structure: Overview article on structure
Explore the language of circles and roles.
Deepen your understanding by viewing the Visual Thesaurus map for circles and roles.
Meetings with sociocracy
Sociocratic meetings are inclusive and efficient with a clear format:
- Opening: check-in and ADMIN
- Content of the meeting
- Consent to agenda
- Agenda items
- Review
- Check-out (meeting evaluation)
Facilitation is a focus of sociocracy. Rounds – the practice of speaking one by one – are commonly used in meetings to keep equivalence and focus. Rounds also make it easy to run virtual meetings in video calls.
Explore the language of sociocratic meetings.
Deepen your understanding by viewing the Visual Thesaurus map for sociocratic meetings.
Performance
All sociocratic processes are built on the basic idea of continuous improvement. Feedback is a way to improve what we do, both by creating feedback-rich organizations, a commitment to interpersonal feedback and formal, peer-oriented performance reviews. Other practices are: meeting evaluations in meetings, reviews for all policy decisions and for role selections.
Leadership in sociocracy is peer-oriented and based on accountability to own commitments and to the circle. Many people also combine sociocracy with restorative justice or Nonviolent Communication to align their practice with their values and to improve their effectiveness and communication.
Explore the language of performance.
Deepen your understanding by viewing the Visual Thesaurus map for feedback and improvement.
Selection process
A sociocratic circle chooses together who will fill an operational or circle role. The most common process to choose that person is the selection process with nominations, change round and consent.
Explore the language of the selection process.
Deepen your understanding by viewing the Visual Thesaurus map for selection process.
Ready to learn?
More sociocracy resources: articles and videos
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Show Me the Money: Transparent Money Management for Social Changemakers
Saoirse Barry & Hugi Asgeirsson | Sep 28th, 17:10-17:35 UTC.
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A Journey Across India to Unleash Everyone’s Potential
Gnanasekar Dhanapal
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Sociocracy with Children and Other People
Language: Español Lessons Learned about Effective Meetings and Community Building I deeply believe that children deserve the same respect as adults, and to that end, I started a learning community where every member has a voice, and we aim to meet everyone’s needs. This alternative to school, Pathfinder, uses sociocracy as our governing process with…
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Clarity and empowerment: What is a domain?
Language: Español Domains in sociocracy – while they are innocent-looking, they are the foundation that makes sociocracy so transformative – with empowerment, and clarity! So what are domains? Each circle has an aim (a description of what they do), and a domain (a statement of what they are responsible for and have authority over). Why…
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For purpose: Galgael
A social enterprise giving people more opportunity.
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Lessons Learned on Conflict in a Sociocratic School Plus Best Practices from Restorative Justice
Conflict is hard, can lead to rifts in relationships, and also make an organization crash and burn. It can be all too easy to push disagreements under the rug, ignore intense feelings in order to keep going with running the business and accomplishing the goals of an organization.
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Blue Scorcher: A bakery worker cooperative in the US sociocracy case study
Language: Español This case study is helpful if you: are part of a worker coop in any sector or would like to see a tried and tested, established implementation of sociocracy. The Blue Scorcher bakery in Oregon (US) has been running on sociocracy since 2012. Make sure to check out the section on governance on…
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Better facilitation: How (not) to side-track a meeting
Here’s how not to side-track a meeting, or at least how to find your way back pretty fast with better facilitation!
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Family Heart Camp a Sociocracy case study
Language: Español [et_pb_section fb_built=”1″ admin_label=”section” _builder_version=”3.22.3″][et_pb_row admin_label=”row” _builder_version=”3.25″ background_size=”initial” background_position=”top_left” background_repeat=”repeat”][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”3.25″ custom_padding=”|||” custom_padding__hover=”|||”][et_pb_text admin_label=”Text” _builder_version=”3.25.1″ background_size=”initial” background_position=”top_left” background_repeat=”repeat”] Interested in Non-violent communication and building strong community structures? Family HEART Camp (FHC) provides children and adults with a week-long summer camp experience at various camping locations in the U.S. Founded off of the principles…
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Sociocracy – basic concepts and principles
Brief overview of sociocracy: basic concepts and principles, history, its use in organizations, its limits and differences to voting, consensus and hierarchical forms of organizing.
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How to have quick meetings that don’t waste time
Meeting time is precious, so it’s a matter of respect to be clear about our intentions first. And the good news is there’s a framework that makes this easy.
