Trust centered Community: Pt 3
Sociocracy in Practice
On Objections, Preferences & Consent
When participants are invited to reflect on a given proposal during rounds, various types of input may arise: praise, additions, critiques, objections and proposed amendments. When critiques or amendments arise, it’s important for all participating members to clarify whether an alternative proposal is a preference or an objection. This distinction merits clarification:
This is my understanding of what an objection is: an opposition to a proposal on the basis that it:
prevents one of the participants from being able to perform their role in service of the group aim
Could significantly undermine the group aim.
From Sociocracy for all:
“Objections are a key part of consent decision-making in sociocracy. Objections are concerns that circle members raise in response to a specific proposal. They mean that someone sees an aspect of the proposal that is not good enough for now, or safe enough to try. An objection can also mean, ‘carrying out this proposal would interfere with my being able to do my work.’” (T. Rau, 2019)
For example, we're forming a writing group on building a resilient community, and publishing our work publicly with the hopes that it provides inspiration and education to others. We've decided to use Substack for now.
In our case of a Substack collaborative writing group, good examples of objections are:
A group member isn’t given sufficient permissions to access Google drive publishing workflow or permissions to author a draft in Substack
A recurrent all-hands meeting is scheduled for a day/time where the member has a pre-existing commitment that prevents them from participating
A member is asked to write about a topic they have little to no interest in
A member is asked to do something which they have no training in and are not supported enough to accomplish it
A member is asked to outlay resources that they don't have
A member is asked to use a technology that does not provide a sufficient feature set to accomplish their role
The critical element being that they obstruct that person's participation in a way that undermines the group aim.
Preferences
Preferences are things that a person feels less than satisfied or even averse to, but that don't directly obstruct them, or anyone else, from achieving the aim of a group. These are invited when in the process of proposal modification. However, when a team has already invested time & energy in a particular decision or direction or is under time pressure, it becomes more difficult to accommodate preferences, and thus it's important to discern between preferences and objections when a decision must be made in the interest of limited time.
Examples of preferences might be:
Someone doesn't like the topic that is up for being published one month
Someone doesn't like the publishing system and wishes to use another, but is able use the existing system, at least for the time being
Someone wants a longer runway for work they're doing, but can get it done in the time allotted
Someone doesn't like the logo/branding/layout decisions, but the logo/branding/layout decisions don't affect the performance of their role
Note that all of these could be addressed given the time and/or willingness of the full group, but they don't directly interfere with any individual contributing to the group aim and are therefore a preference.
Consent
The decision-making method used in sociocracy is consent. Consent is different from consensus. How? The short version is that in (most forms of) consensus, we’re trying to come to a unanimous decision where everyone agrees. In consent, we’re trying to come to a proposal where no one objects. What’s the difference?
In consent, personal preferences are not as important as objections. We might try to get close to people’s preferences in the proposal forming process, but when it comes to decision-making, the focus is on objections. As clarified, an objection means I have reasons to assume that making this decision is going to negatively impact our ability to achieve our aim. (The aim is a description of what the circle or role is doing.) (T. Rau, 2019)
An objection means I have reasons to assume that making this decision is going to negatively impact our ability to achieve our aim
Proposal Amendment
When objections are raised, the circle rounds continue with responses and alternative proposals until agreeable alternatives are reached. Agreeable alternatives are those to which there are no further objections after each participant has had an opportunity to respond to the amended proposal.
Once an agreeable alternative has been reached, a round is given for consent. Once there are no final objections, the group collaboration can commence. A proposal can then be deconstructed into its component steps, tasks are picked up by group members with pertinent roles, and a collaborative timeline is proposed. Once a clear plan has been reached, a final response round is conducted to ensure everyone has the same expectations for what will be accomplished before the next meeting. Unvisited agenda items from the current meeting, or those that arose during the meeting, are added to the backlog.
Check out
The conclusion of the meeting is an opportunity for reflection on the meeting itself. Participants are encouraged to reflect on the meeting process: time-keeping & facilitation, the content of the meeting: was everything important covered, are there any outstanding issues, and interpersonal dynamics?; how connected does the group feel?; is there anything that needs to be shared? This is the forum for iterative improvement of meetings; it’s essential to streamlining collaboration and group processes.
Feedback & Performance
Critical to the sociocratic process is routine cycles of feedback and workflow modification to measure or evaluate how well the group is accomplishing its aim given its governance processes and gather input from all involved as to how it may better achieve stated goals. This is summarized by the lead-do-measure framework,
Make plans (lead)
Implement the plans (do)
Evaluate the outcomes (measure)
It’s recommended to have feedback cycles at regular intervals such as the end of each meeting, after each major accomplishment, and/or annually. Role performance is also evaluated at regular intervals.
Role performance evaluation is characterized by three steps:
What are the role’s responsibilities? What is working and what is not working?
What are potential areas for improvement? What are specific ideas for improvement?
Consent to the improvement plan
Circle performance is evaluated similarly, but feedback is directed to each member of the circle and the circle process itself.
Organizational performance, which encompasses the collaboration of all circles, is evaluated between circles with regard to the overall aim of the organization. Organizational performance is often best evaluated with input from outside the organization, such as from surveys, community stakeholder circles and/or consulting team.
Sociocracy wrap-up
The core of sociocracy is a consensus-based self-governance process that employs a minimal scaffolding of linking roles to coordinate actions between circles. The structure of sociocracy is like that of a cellular network with many circles communicating via the linking members. The primary aim of a circle is accomplished through proposals, objections, role creation and assignments, and consent process. Sociocracy provides a fluent framework with which small groups of people can begin the process of building a self-governing system that accommodates modifications, adjustments, and attunements for equitably achieving shared goals.
Conclusion
This exploration is intended to be an educational resource on a consensus based system of dynamic governance that is consensus based and ideal for developing communities. This article is a starting point for what will likely become a series of articles on various modalities of dynamic governance and collective decision making. Stay tuned for future articles on other systems designed for larger scale decision making such as statistical democracy. If you’d like to suggest a topic for a future article in this series, please feel free to in the comments! I hope that this article inspires and informs others interested in forming deeper connections with community members and fruitful collaborative relationships.
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Bibliography
Duhigg, C. (2016, February 25). What Google Learned From Its Quest to Build the Perfect Team. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/28/magazine/what-google-learned-from-its-quest-to-build-the-perfect-team.html
Rau, T. (2019, June 21). On Objections in Sociocracy—Sociocracy For All. https://www.sociocracyforall.org/sociocracy-objections/
Rau, T. (2019, December 1). Saying yes! To working and no! To stumbling blocks—Sociocracy For All. https://www.sociocracyforall.org/saying-yes-to-working-and-no-to-stumbling-blocks/
Rau, T. J. (2023). Sociocracy—A Brief Introduction. Sociocracy For All.