Cohousing-L Mailing List: Sociocracy intro

[vbradova (vbradova]

I worked with John Buck to make some clarifications to his intro text, and so
I am posting it here for interested folks.

Vera, NY
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INTRODUCTION TO SOCIOCRACY

Originally envisioned in 1945 by Kees Boeke, a Dutch educator and pacifist,
as a way to adapt Quaker egalitarian principles to secular organizations, 
sociocracy
allows people to give and receive effective leadership while remaining peers.
And it opens a realistic way for the environment to have a meaningful voice
in decision-making.

Brief History

Gerard Endenburg, a pupil of Kees Boeke, developed Boeke's vision into a body
of well-tested procedures and practical principles. Gerard Endenburg's parents,
socialists before World War II, after the war set up their own (successful)
electrical installations company to try out their advanced ideas. Gerard trained
as an electrical engineer and gained expertise in cybernetics (the new science
of steering and control). He worked briefly for Phillips Electronics, designing
a flat speaker that is still used in small electronic equipment. Then, his 
father
challenged him to manage a small, failing business he had purchased. In less
than a year Gerard had made the business profitable and merged it with his 
parent's
company. In the late 1960s Gerard's father retired, and Gerard became manager
of Endenburg Electrotechniek, Inc., with the mandate run it both as a profitable
business and as a real time laboratory for testing innovative management ideas.
Sociocracy is a product of that "laboratory." 

Today, Gerard has retired from day-to-day management of Endenburg 
Electrotechniek
to devote his time to running the Sociocratisch Centrum, Inc., a consulting
business that assists a wide variety of companies and organizations with the
implementation of sociocratic structures. He is also a professor at the 
University
of Maastricht where sociocracy is part of the curriculum and academic practice
of the Economic Science and Industry Department.

Why Sociocracy?

Businesses wanting better creativity, higher employee commitment, and 
inexpensive
protection from hostile takeovers should consider converting to a sociocratic
structure (the latter is achieved because a sociocratic organization can only
become part of another organization if it consents to do so). Housing co-ops,
clubs, religious organizations, schools and other non-profits may want to 
convert
to a sociocratic structure to increase their harmony. Sociocracy provides relief
from inefficient and exhausting consensus approaches to decision making. It
also avoids the serious rifts that may develop in groups which make decisions
through majority vote. 

What Is Sociocracy?

Sociocracy is rule of an organization by the "socii," that is, people who 
regularly
interact with each other and have a common aim. (The prefix socio- comes from
"socius," the Latin term for companion or colleague.)Each socius has a voice
that cannot be ignored in the managing of the organization. In contrast, 
democracy
is rule by the "demos," that is, a collection of people who may or may not know
each other and have only general aims in common -- such as the running of a
country. An autocracy is rule by an "auto" or single person. The typical 
business
is an autocracy. The majority of the "demos" can ignore the minority of the
"demos" as they make their decisions. An "auto" can choose to ignore the rest
of the organization. 

With sociocracy, the basis of decision-making is consent, which uses the 
principle
of no objection. Whereas with democracy, the basis of decision-making is voting,
which uses the principle of numeric majority. With consensus people ask for
a "yes," or a "sense of the group" - a concept that requires long discussion
and understanding of issues that members of the group may not have. Conventional
profit-making companies operate autocratically: the owners and the executive
they hire reserve the right to make decisions by fiat. Voting, consensus, and
autocratic decision-making all have positive aspects. Sociocratic consent 
decision-making
is powerful because the consent-based approach can use and take advantage of
the positive aspects of other forms of decision making while guarding against
the negatives.

How Does Sociocracy Work?

Sociocratic organizations use four ground rules derived from cybernetic 
principles.

 
Ground Rules:
Consent 
The principle of consent governs the decision-making process (consent = no 
reasoned
and paramount objection). This means that a policy decision can only be made
if nobody raises a reasoned and paramount objection against it.

Circles 
The organization consists of circles of semi-autonomous groups. Each circle
has its own aim, performs the three functions of directing, operating, and 
measuring/feedback,
and maintains its own memory system by means of integral education. 

Double link 
The connection between two circles consists of a double link. This means that
at least two persons from one circle participate in the decision making in the
next higher circle: the functional leader and one or more elected 
representatives.


Elections 
Persons are elected exclusively by consent, after open discussion. 
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Links
John Buck recently received a master's degree in quantitative sociology, 
including
a thesis about sociocracy. Presently he works as a computer systems project
manager for a Virginia-based consulting firm. He trained under Endenburg and
offers training workshops and support for groups learning sociocracy. He has
recently started an online discussion board at 
http://www.sociocracyusa.atfreeweb.com.


The main sociocratic center, Sociocratic Center Netherlands 
(http://www.euronet.nl/~gend/scn_e.htm),
has a some additional information and short publications in English. 

The Ecovillage of Loudoun County Virginia (http://www.ecovil.com), a new 
co-housing
community, has a nice web page that includes some discussion about their use
of sociocracy. 

You can find a case study by Prof. Georges Romme in the British professional
journal published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., Knowledge and Process Management,
"Toward the Learning Organization: The Case of Circular Re-engineering," Vol.
5, No. 3, (1998) p. 158-164.

You can order two full length books about sociocracy, Sociocracy, the 
organization
of decision making, and Sociocracy as Social Design, from amazon.com. Click
on the "Books" tab and search on the word "sociocracy." The former book, written
in 1981 and updated in 1998, discusses the conceptual framework of sociocracy.
The latter, written in 1998, describes how sociocracy is used at Endenburg 
Electrotechniek,
Inc., the company where the model was originally developed.