Socialising decisions
The programme I work on uses sociocracy, well a version of it. We use it to make major decisions across a team of 11. I have written about it before.
Not being a purist!
As with many approaches and methodologies…there is what is written in the handbook and then there is reality and finding a place that works for the team. As a team, our approach to sociocracy has waxed and waned but overall, I think we have kept within the spirit of the approach, which is to use ‘consent’, rather than majority voting, in discussion and decision making.
The decision is the easy bit
This is not really true but traditionally, organisations invest a huge amount of resources in making decisions but invest much less time in socialising or getting buy-in for a decision. We have found that using a sociocratic approach, allows us to do both at the same time. I will talk a bit more about the specific benefits of the approach and where it can be challenging.
What benefits does sociocracy bring to decision making?
- an approach to make decisions based on consent
- allows you to track decisions and the rationale behind the decisions
- allows diversity of thoughts in the decision making process
- reduces hierarchy in decision making, which in turn creates joint ownership for decisions
- the approach ensures we keep our focus on the decision and not get stuck in ‘rabbit hole’ debates
- proposals for decisions can be made by anyone within the team
- allows us to be intentional about the impact our decisions have on diversity, equity and inclusion
- any proposal for a decision can be blocked by any member of the team (with a reason of course)
What challenges does sociocracy bring to decision making?
- It can feel slow at times, which makes it hard to get buy-in from the team, if they are new to it.
- It can limit more free-flowing conversations, debate and reflection
- Not always easy to know which decisions should go through a sociocratic process
- It is a very different culture of decision making, which takes time to adapt to
- Proposals are mostly developed by the programme manager, which is counter to our aim to democratise decision making
- As the team grows, sociocracy can become quite hard to avoid endless circles, without proper delegation of decision making across different teams.
It definitely works for me
I can’t speak for the rest of the team but opening up decision making works for me. I feel it results in better informed decisions, with greater buy-in and makes it much easier to implement decisions compared to when decisions are made in a black box or by a few people.
Read another perspective of how sociocracy can benefit organisations — https://outlandish.com/blog/co-operatives/how-sociocracy-might-benefit-your-organisation/
Template of the proposal format that we use for presenting decisions to the team.
The Proposal (overview):
High level overview of what the proposal is covering
Details of proposal:
The what, why, who, how and when
Any considerations:
Anything that the proposer would like to raise or be considered in the meeting
Equity, Diversity and Inclusion impact of proposal:
Highlight anything that you feel could impact on EDI
Mitigations of negative impacts on EDI:
List approaches to minimise the impacts
Sociocracy questions (that we use):
Reflections:
Clarifying questions:
Critical concerns
