Language: Español
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!
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.
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
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.
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.
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
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Sociocracy 3.0 with Children
James Priest
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A Project-Based Approach to Introducing Sociocracy
Gina Price, Julie Demholm, Jessie Barber, Olly Watkins
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Sociocracy Facilitation Sheet for Better Meetings
Have you ever felt stuck in a meeting? This downloadable cheat sheet for facilitators has all of the key components of sociocratic facilitation on one page!
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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…
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Sociocracy. The operating system of the New Economy.
Sociocracy. The operating system of the New Economy.
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Benefits of feedback processes and employee voice in sociocracy
Creating psychological safety is important to ensuring a safe environment for employees to voice concerns without fear of negative consequences. Read this article about how check-ins and shared leadership lead to more psychological safety.
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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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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: […]
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Dynamically Steering Compensation
Joost Schouten | Sep 29th, 17:10 – 17:35 UTC.
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Sociocratic Governance in Unicorn Grocery Co-op
Language: Español What is Unicorn Grocery? Unicorn Grocery is a thriving worker-owned, values-driven grocery co-op using sociocracy for its governance in Chorlton, Manchester, UK. They consist of 71 members who […]
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Rounds, turn-taking, and team performance
Rounds facilitate the habits that research shows make teams thrive. Distributing speaking turns is backed by science!
