Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Survey About Community Governance

[Puck (ve/ver/vis) (thehonestpuck]

Hi Sharon,

These are all excellent points! I've received some excellent feedback on the 
survey over the course of the past week+ and, given the chance to do it over, I 
would structure it differently the second time. 

Our learning circle is finishing up next week, so there is not time to rerun 
the survey, but I will certainly keep in mind what I've learned through doing 
this, including your feedback, for any future projects in this vein.

Warmly,
Puck


Robin Goodfellow (Puck) Malamud
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On Monday, May 20th, 2024 at 15:57, Sharon Villines <sharon [at] 
sharonvillines.com> wrote:

> After responding to the survey, I initially planned to respond directly to 
> the authors but decided the points I want to make would be helpful to others 
> and are not just criticisms of the survey.
> 
> If someone answers “no” the the question does your community use sociocracy 
> in its governance, the survey ends with Thank you very much for your time.
> 
> The question "does your community use sociocracy" isn’t a “yes" or “no" 
> answer. Sociocracy has had a major influence on all of cohousing and its 
> governance methods. It has greatly contributed to the definitions of consent 
> and consensus, and to expectations in the resolution of objections. 
> Discussions of sociocracy have been active since at least 2002. Many 
> communities are not even aware that what they are doing is completely in line 
> with sociocracy. Others are using sociocracy in ways that few, if any. 
> experts would consider correct. Should that be a yes or a no?
> 
> So first, you need a definition of sociocracy, I think best based on the 
> objectives, the reasons for using sociocracy. This gives you a sense of how 
> equitable the community governance intends to be.
> 
> Second, you need to specify specific principles and practices that are 
> considered key to ensuring that objections are resolved before action is 
> taken. All of the principles and practices of sociocracy have been accepted 
> as best practices in all kinds of organizations. Sociocracy is unique only in 
> that it ties all of them together in a system that requires that everyone in 
> a domain can expect their objections to taken seriously and be resolved so 
> that person is still able to function comfortably in the organization.
> 
> It would be most helpful to measure what a “yes” means and to allow a “no” 
> that still measures the influence of sociocracy on communities.
> 
> For example: Takoma Village members would almost unanimously say that we do 
> not use sociocracy. But there are few things that we would have to implement 
> in order to be ‘certified’ sociocratic. We define consent/consenus as “no 
> objections” or all objections resolved. And that standard is applied in all 
> areas of community functioning. We have tons of overlapping teams, pods, 
> working groups, study groups, and impromptu groups that all function 
> according to this standard.
> 
> We have a Board with a President, Secretary, and Treasurer elected by the 
> membership and team reps chosen by the 3 main teams.
> 
> We don’t use the elections process but there are questions about whether it 
> is an essential part of sociocracy. We have so many opportunities for 
> leadership that it is more a question of finding someone who will fill them. 
> But it is also true that we work to have people in place that everyone 
> consents to at some level. And all policy decisions by a team have to be 
> consented to by the larger group as well. If people object to this or that, 
> it would create problems with adherence. In practical terms, we do what works 
> and what works is what has overt but not necessarily formal consent.
> 
> We are getting better at soliciting feedback after an event or major 
> maintenance job. We don’t have an ending date for policies or specific 
> evaluation processes but we often discuss it. We have so much overlap in the 
> membership of teams and working groups that feedback is pretty much perpetual 
> without a formal process.
> 
> For me, the essential element is consent and we had established that before 
> we ever heard of sociocracy. But sociocracy has greatly contributed to the 
> clarification of what consent means and to the expectations of evaluation of 
> results, reflective analysis of how things have worked, etc.
> 
> I would be hard-pressed to say that the community would function better if it 
> formally adopted sociocracy except in one way — there is resistance from the 
> facilitators to using rounds. “It takes too long.” Our meetings are often 
> 30-40 people so it does have some validity but my argument is that if we used 
> rounds more regularly, people would be more focused and feel comfortable 
> passing if they have nothing new to say.
> 
> The problem with the survey is that there is no place to record those 
> qualifiers and for me the influence of sociocracy is much more important than 
> the technicalities of names and technical processes.
> 
> Sharon
> ------
> Sharon Villines, Washington DC
> Founder of Sociocracy.info
> Coauthor with John Buck of "We the People: Consenting to a Deeper Democracy,”
> A Handbook for Understanding and Implementing Sociocratic Principles and 
> Practices. (2017)
> Now in Spanish, Portuguese, and Korean.
> ISBN: 978-0-9792827-3-7
> https://amzn.to/30owgWN