Sociocracy resources

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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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!

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Who Decides Who Decides?

How to start a group so everyone can have a voice!

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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.

Circles

Meetings

Performance

More: Selection process | Writing proposals | Implementation

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In sociocracy, we make decisions by consent. The goal is to make inclusive decisions fast.

Deciding by consent means no endless discussions and no coercion. A group simply approves a proposal when it's good enough.

With consent, decision-making gets easier and clear. Instead of arguing against each other, we're all on the same side.

A step-by-step consent process helps us make a decision together in an orderly way.

Talking one by one means more clarity, listening, participation, and sync.

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.

See it done

Circles and roles: who decides what?

We trust and empower committees that we call circles. A circle organizes the work and makes decisions together.

Every circle has clarity on their piece of the work and can get things done. Working together. Deciding together.

Two related circles are connected by two people as links. They enable flow of information and balance of power.

The General Circle in the middle makes sure all information comes together and all circles are aligned and clear.

We cluster regular tasks and decisions into roles. The circle sets the frame just enough for everyone to go do things.

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

Meetings with sociocracy

1. Opening round. At the beginning of the meeting, people share how they are doing.

Meetings are effective, inclusive, and satisfying! Clear roles and a robust meeting template help with that.

2. Respectful of time and topics. We set a clear agenda together and stay on topic.

3. Agenda items. We discuss each agenda item and make use of rounds so everyone gets to speak and people listen to each other.

4. Closing round. At the end of each meeting, we do a full round of feedback on the meeting so we can improve meetings over time.

We track current and future agenda topics to stay accountable for what we care about.

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.

See a meeting

Performance

Feedback is a wonderful way to improve together what we do.

If we make plans and review them together, we can learn from our experiences and improve what we do.

Trust goes both ways. People in roles are empowered to decide but also are expected to ask for advice and listen.

Instead of rigid plans for an unpredictable future, we experiment to feel our way forward by learning.

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.

Selection process

Each circle is self managed and picks by consent who will contribute how. For example, facilitator, secretary, leader, and delegate roles.

People are selected for a certain term. That way, we can spread leadership while maintaining clarity.

The circle picks those roles in an open and affirmative process, the 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.

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More sociocracy resources: articles and videos

Sociocracy’s Magic Number 3

Language: Español Sociocracy’s Magic Number 3: A Tripartite Triad Tradition Introduction It has been stated time and again that every good story has a beginning, a middle and an end. I […]
Could sociocracy be used to self-govern a country?

Sociocracy is a way to govern organizations in a way so everyone’s voices are valued and heard, while still moving forward together. Given the divisiveness and bipartisanship in our societies, doesn’t that sound desirable?
LOS: A non-traditional school environment sociocracy case study

LOS is a sociocratic school located in the small village of Duerne in the south of the Netherlands.
What is a Help Desk?

After using sociocracy “by the book” for years and very successfully, we have started to introduce a new concept: a Help Desk circle. It introduces a small but extremely powerful nuance in what circles are and how we can decentralize decisions and operations while empowering everyone in the organization in moving things forward that they…
We Would Rather be Right than Happy

Gina Simm | 16:00 UTC
On interpersonal feedback

Language: Español There is no right and wrong Many people are afraid of feedback. “Can I give you some feedback?” is typically followed by criticism, and we don’t do well […]
The tragedy of the meeting: Meeting time as an example of a common pool resource

Meeting time is lifetime shared with others. How do we share these resources well? This article highlights Prosocial’s Core Design Principles with the example of meeting time as a common pool resource and shows how tools from sociocracy help share time in a collaborative way.
Keeping meetings short

Long meetings are a pain. Let’s make them shorter. Here are the tools that sociocracy has to offer.
Sociocracy in Big Data: A case study with Hertzler Systems

Language: Español The primary source of the information in this case study came from a 2021 interview with Byron Shetler, CEO of Hertzler Systems Inc. HERTZLER QUICK FACTS Location: […]
Ups and downs of Sociocracy

Juliette Corazón | 20:00 UTC
5 Strategies for Combining Equity with Sociocracy

The key promise of sociocracy is that all voices matter. In reality our current sociocracy practices are not enough to overcome the way society systemically oppresses the voices of people from poor, non-white, transgender, disabled, et cetera, backgrounds. In this article I define equity, make an argument for why combining equity and sociocracy is so…
Circles in sociocracy: an effective organizational structure

Circle structure in sociocracy: nested circles, linking, helping circles and special circles.