Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Sociocracy (response to "blocking consensus" and long)

[Sheila Braun (sheila.braun]

Continuing the exploration of sociocracy & consensus...

> Does the "election" use sociocratic methods, or is it voting, or ?

To fill a position we follow these steps.

1) We ascertain that everyone in the room understands the role needing to be
filled. If it's the Design Committee chair, for instance, then the aim of
the Design Committee is read

2) We specify the term. Right now we are electing people to their positions
for 6 months. The first time we held elections we used 3-month terms, at
John Buck's suggestion. That was a good idea. It took us a few
months to get to know each other well enough to arrange ourselves in
positions where we could have the best impact.

3) Each equity member writes on a scrap of paper, "Sheila recommends Bob,"
or whatever.

4) We pass our slips to the facilitator, who reads each one in turn and
tallies the votes (if necessary--it usually isn't) to get a sense of which
of the candidates is least likely to meet with a reasoned & paramount
objection.

    As each vote is read, the voter is asked to give a rationale for his or
her vote. This is usually enlightening. It's like public gossip, in a way,
except that the result is often that two or three people in the room end
up feeling pretty good after seeing how others believe in them. We often
laugh during this step because people are shocked to be nominated--or even
more shocked by *who* nominates them.
    We don't usually ask people ahead of time if they are willing. The
reason for this is that even if you can't take a position, you and the group
all gain something by identifying the fact that if you would do the job,
you'd be wanted for the job. It can be hard for Bob to sit through listening
to everybody say, "Bob is my choice because he's qualified and I trust him,"
when he happens to know that his wife is pregnant with their 5th child and
there is *no way* he'll add anything to his life right now, but it's good
stuff to hear so much confidence and trust coming from the group,
nevertheless.

5) Each person in turn is given an opportunity to change his or her vote and
to explain the rationale for doing so. Usually this happens because somebody
makes an excellent point about a candidate (like Bob's wife Sarah says, "You
all
should know that *I'm* not voting for Bob because I'm pregnant with our
5th," [clap clap congratulations yay ohmygoodness]--and suddenly everybody
is voting for Jennifer.

6) The facilitator says, "Let's do a round on Jennifer as Design Committee
chair. Marc, do you have any objection to Jennifer?...Larilee, do
you?...Nancy?..." etc. Usually this works. If it doesn't, like if one person
is a holdout against someone in a position, then the facilitator tries
someone else or identifies the rationale for the objection & tries to modify
the proposal so it can be accepted ("How about we try this for 3 months
instead of 6?").
>
> Does the facilitator facilitate all meetings during
> their term?  What if a topic comes up that they are too attached about?

Yes, the facilitator facilitates all meetings unless he or she can't for a
specific reason (childbirth? travel schedule?).  In that case, the
facilitator finds somebody else to fill in.

As far as being attached about topcis, that's an interesting question. I'm
not aware of any requirement in sociocracy for being detached. Is there one
in consensus?

I personally am one of the least detached people I know about most topics,
yet I facilitate a circle. The reason I find this works for me is that
facilitating is like following a scientific procedure. Opening rounds,
proposal, rounds, proposal, rounds, proposal, rounds, closing rounds. There
is so little reason to get bogged down with arguments now that we understand
how to do this. Even facilitating my own proposals has worked because it's
like following a recipe. Read the proposal--do the rounds--respond by
changing the proposal--round again--change again--round again, okay. Next.

I have been stuck--and seen other facilitators get stuck--not knowing how to
alter a proposal to overcome an objection, but then if one says simply,
"Hmm. I'm not sure what to do," somebody else is bound to have a good
suggestion.

I've also seen facilitators cry. There's plenty of room for that, and if
everybody is aware of where we're at (this is a round, and it's her turn to
give her opinion, for instance), then it all helps to move us forward. We
need to know everybody's feelings--even the facilitator's--to make a good
decision.

Sociocracy seems so very rational that one might expect emotionlessness
would be a requirement for good facilitation, but that doesn't seem to me to
be the case. The *structure* is so rationale that the *content* can be quite
emotional without breaking anything. At least, that's the way I see it. When
I have ten years experience rather than one and a half, maybe I'll think
differently.

>

> I love this aspect of putting responsibility for things back onto the
> participants, that sounds great.  Though i do think it depends on everyone
> having solid training in how to get things done within the method,
> otherwise there would be problems with unequal power distribution.

Excellent point. I believe you've just identified our major difficulties
when we were trying to implement this. Every now and then somebody would
say, "Hey!!! what about ME???" and seem to feel like they had no input. We
finally asked two of our members to become especially well trained in
sociocracy and to take on the task of training all new members. This helped
immediately just because having these two well-trained people at meetings
kept us operating well. And now that we have them in place as trainers,
we're making a statement that before complaining that the system doesn't
work, you must--and can--get to know it. And then, usually, you don't have
your original complaints any more.
>

> I assume what the statement means is that power is invested in a
functional
> role, not in a person, and also that no one person is in charge of the
> whole shebang.  Power is shared as people rotate through steering councils
> or whatever the highest part of the governance hierarchy is in that
> community.  Of course there are always power differences in any group,
> people have varying amounts of charisma, articulateness, and so on.  Every
> group has members that are more widely respected than others.  But
> community-oriented structures try to balance things out and prevent any
one
> person from holding too much sway over the group.  I'm not sure if my
> statements here make it more clear or not. . . .\

Yes, actually, your explanation is very helpful. It sounds like a way of
avoiding autocracy through establishing an attitude of turn-taking. Is it?
>
>
> OK, now i get it more, you are talking about a specific role during the
> development phase.  I think that's very different than how things are once
> the place is built.

We haven't decided what to do with the "functional leader" once we're built.
Any sociocratic organization does have one.  I'm guessing we'll still have
somebody who works for the top circle and makes sure that when balls drop
they don't hit the floor--but then the balls might be something like lawn
mowing rather than like paying the architect or
choosing the contractor.

>This is not my area of expertise, but my impression is
> that different communities in development handle this in different ways,
> for example, some communities have a committee to handle that stuff (such
> as Sharingwood's "Emergency Bullshit Committee") rather than one person.
> Or in some groups, i imagine that committee chairs consult the whole group
> when necessary, potential recruits are routed to an outreach committee, a
> legal committee deals with permitting, while a design committee liaisons
> with the architects and builders.

Interesting. How does one build that from the ground up with constantly
changing membership?

Sheila Braun
Champlain Valley Cohousing
www.champlainvalleycohousing.org
(802) 862-8657

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