Sociocracy for Activists: Organizing by Consent

Group decision-making

Is consensus too slow or getting bogged down?
Is informal decision-making leading to paralysis or to hidden power hierarchies?

Decision-making methods: a comparison

Decision-making methods help groups make decisions. There are different decision-making methods – but none of them fell from the sky. Think for example, about parliamentary procedures. They are human-made, abstract concepts! All decision-making methods are imperfect, and each of them comes with implications, pros, and cons. The good news is that we have a choice
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Consent process: decision-making in sociocracy

An explainer video on the consent process in sociocracy.
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Running effective meetings

Do your meetings lack a structure that allows for forward progress and full engagement?
Do you ever wonder, “Did I need to be at this meeting?”

In sociocracy, we discuss in rounds to engage everyone and gather all the wisdom in the room. And by distributing power across interconnected teams, decisions are made by those doing the work while gathering input from those affected by the decision.

3 tools from sociocracy for better decision making

Many organizations are intrigued by the idea of self-management because they hope to have better decision making while creating a power-with culture and structure. Sociocracy is one of the central governance methods to achieve exactly that. However, it can be intimidating to implement those methods – it’s a lot at once! You’ll have to do
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On rounds in sociocracy

Speaking in rounds is an essential tool of sociocracy. Rounds promote equivalence and every voice being heard.
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Why use sociocracy in activist groups?

We believe activism and sociocracy are a great match. Both value shared power, equality, and cooperation.

Many activists using consensus or majority vote find it challenging to have the decision-making they are longing for. Decisions might take a long time or don’t include everyone’s input. With sociocracy, many of these issues disappear:

Clarity: small, trusted teams, and people in clear roles make it easier to define each other’s responsibility and authority. Fewer discussions have to be discussed by everyone – and yet, those smaller teams have more headspace to actually listen to everyone’s input.
Calm meetings: rounds and consent and an orderly meeting format help so no one gets ignored and nothing is forgotten.
Connection: smaller teams and rounds help build trust, belonging and togetherness.

Where do we start?

Read and watch the information on this page. If you are interested in suggesting sociocracy at your organization, make sure to read The Sociocracy Starter Kit first. You will notice that it suggests involving other people in your exploration as early as possible. Having seen dozens of organizations in this situation, we really mean it!

Connect with us

The button below will take you to a short form to help us better understand the needs of activist organizations interested in sociocracy and help us stay in touch.