Inclusivity in Action: Connecting the Principles of Sociocracy 3.0 and Liberating Structures.

When faced with complex adaptive problems, where volatility, uncertainty and ambiguity are rife, the most successful organizations are those that prioritize inclusivity, thereby unlocking and harnessing the collective intelligence of their knowledge workers. This is because complexity requires novel solutions, and inclusion ensures that diverse perspectives, backgrounds, and experiences come together, making collaboration not just a team-building exercise but a strategic advantage.

When organizations cultivate a culture of collaboration and inclusion, they unlock the collective intelligence of their teams, accessing a deeper reservoir of insights, skills, and experiences than the sum of those individuals. This leads to more robust solutions, fostering innovation that a singular perspective may be blind to. In collaborative environments, teams are more able to pivot quickly in the face of new challenges or information. Organizations that harness the power of collaboration are those that have greater potential to remain resilient, relevant, and ahead of the curve.

Collaborative teamwork is a competitive advantage

Teamwork in business is a formidable competitive advantage, and there’s ample evidence to prove it. According to a study by Google’s Project Aristotle, the highest-performing teams thrive on trust, which enhances collaboration. By blending diverse and inclusive perspectives, teams ignite innovation — a fact highlighted by a McKinsey report showing companies with inclusive and diverse teams are 35% more likely to outperform their peers.

The MIT Human Dynamics Laboratory, found that cohesive teams could increase productivity by up to 20%. Moreover, Gallup’s research indicates that a highly engaged team boosts profitability by 21%. Such collaboration doesn’t just fast-track problem-solving; it also fortifies organizational culture. As per a study by Deloitte, businesses promoting collaboration are twice as likely to be profitable and outpace their competitors. In the fast-evolving market landscape, companies leveraging the strength of their teams are better poised to thrive.

Principles Driving the Collaboration

At its heart, collaboration is built upon the following principles:

• Shared Ownership: Everyone, irrespective of their background or role, has a stake in the decisions and outcomes. S3 calls this the Principle of Equivalence: involve people in decisions that affect them, ensuring a diverse and representative mix of voices.
• Transparency: Open sharing of information, objectives, and concerns so that everyone can understand how to contribute effectively towards the whole.
• Empowerment: Providing teams the autonomy to make decisions, while ensuring alignment with the organization’s vision. This is balanced with the S3 Principle of Accountability: do what you say you will, and accept your share of responsibility for the course of your team and organization.
• Continuous Learning: Embracing feedback, iterating, and adapting based on collective insights. Effective teams invest in peer development, as well as double- and triple-loop learning to focus on deeper learning, and the values and principles that bring people together.
• Trust: the foundation for all forms of collaboration. If team members don’t trust one another or the process, to consent, to challenge, to object safely, the other principles cannot be attained.

Cultivating a Culture of Inclusive Decision-Making

So now recognizing the value of inclusivity and collaborative decision-making, how do we go about accomplishing this, and building it into our organizational DNA? Let’s take four methods and concepts that can be integrated together to grow team inclusivity and collaboration in a progressive manner that includes organizational leaders throughout.

• Sociocracy 3.0 (S3). S3 offers free social technology for effective collaboration at scale, and in creating agile and resilient organizations of any size. This is a pattern based approach to organizational change, which allows for an experiment based approach to selecting the right-fit structures, processes and practices based on the unique context, forces at play, and real business problems to be solved within an organization. S3 provides patterns for organizational design, in aligning people to specific domains, and circles of action and governance. At a team level, S3 promotes co-creation, consent-decision making, and testing objections being safe enough to proceed.
• Liberating Structures. These are a library of 33 easy to learn microstructures, used to increase relational coordination and trust. They can be used to quickly build lively participation in groups of any size. Liberating Structures transform the way meetings, and discussions are facilitated, ensuring that everyone is involved in shaping outcomes.

Teams applying sociocractic principles and applying Liberating Structures into their meeting formats benefit from decision-making that is happening closest to where the work is happening; are minimizing friction in their daily work by navigating by tension; and build the psychological safety of including diverse views, sharing accountability for decisions made within their domain, and the confidence to challenge ideas to everyone’s collective benefit. As leaders who may see benefit in this future state for their organizations, but are uncertain of how such a journey can be made progressively and safely, these practices can support you.

• Intent-Based Leadership. This approach, which shifts the paradigm from “giving orders” to “giving control”, entrusts teams with the responsibility of action, allowing them to state their intent and act upon it once it’s clear. David Marquet is the person to read first.
• Bounded Autonomy. Fully autonomous, self-managing teams are not formed overnight. To ensure that empowerment doesn’t lead to chaos, bounded autonomy sets the boundaries within which teams can exercise their freedom, ensuring that autonomy complements alignment. Over time, the boundaries can be widened as the team demonstrates accountability to exercise greater freedoms.

What Steps Can an Organization Take?

1. Start Small: Begin by introducing one or two microstructures from Liberating Structures in your meetings. Observe the change in engagement levels. Liberating Structures are meant to be something that you can start using straight away and experiment with. Check out 1–2–4-all, 15% solutions and Impromptu Networking.
2. Define Domains: In line with S3, define circles - a working group or team — and establish clear domains of influence, decision-making and activity allowing members to understand their areas of influence and responsibility. Again, start small, don’t try and change the whole organization.
3. Introduce S3 patterns: Consent-Decision Making — testing for objections and focusing on what is outside of people's tolerance is a significant paradigm shift. Adapt Patterns To Context to give structure to the change: understand the pattern; understand the context; proposal for adaptation; consent to adaptation; test adaptation; evaluate and evolve. The Core Protocols can help.
4. Set Boundaries: Clearly outline the boundaries within which teams operate. This could be in terms of resources, time, scope, or any other relevant metric. Within these bounds, grant teams the autonomy to make decisions and take actions. A good starting point is to agree where a leader gets to decide, to seek advice, to delegate, and be informed. Check out the decision cards from Shift314.
5. Clarify Intent: Before major decisions or actions, encourage teams to communicate and clarify their intent. As leaders, instead of prescribing exact actions, ask teams, “What’s your intent?” to foster proactive thinking.
6. Iterate and Feedback: Establish regular feedback loops. This could be in the form of retrospectives, check-ins, or any other feedback mechanism that aligns with your organization’s culture.

Conclusion

By understanding the “Why” behind the need for collective decision-making, organizations grasp the long term criticality of harnessing collective intelligence. This becomes their driving force, amplifying the value of every voice and the innovative solutions that emerge from their inclusion. The “How” is demonstrated through the principles of S3 and Liberating Structures, with their focus on trust, shared ownership, transparency, and continuous learning. They provide the methods that shape this integration, connecting collective wisdom into actionable strategies. The “What” is the first view of practical steps an organization can take, that provide a tangible pathway for leaders to foster a collaborative and inclusive environment.

However, this shift is more than just a strategic implementation; it’s a journey of cultural evolution. As organizations delve deeper, they move beyond merely adopting systems or techniques. The transformation embodies a profound change in leadership paradigms — from control to empowerment, from isolated decisions to shared ownership, and from rigid hierarchies to dynamic collaboration.

For businesses seeking to excel in today’s volatile landscape, recognizing and acting upon the synergy between the “Why,” “How,” and “What” is imperative. Such organizations don’t merely adapt; they can thrive, powered by an environment where every voice matters, every idea holds potential, and every step forward is a collective stride towards a brighter, more inclusive future.