Cohousing-L Mailing List: Nominations Process [was Borda Count]

[Sharon Villines (sharon]

On Feb 13, 2008, at 6:40 PM, Tim Mensch wrote:

> At Pleasant Hill, the process was to collect nominations for positions
> as a first pass, and then folks could decline nominations.

This is the part of the process that I personally would like to avoid.  
It takes many hours of work over 6 weeks and every year there is some  
dissatisfaction or another -- some years major. The team produces a  
slate with no choices. Some people are nominated who do not know what  
is really expected of them because the nominating team is under  
pressure to come up with a slate and everyone is declining.

> The sociocratic system was designed to be used in a business  
> environment.

Actually it is used in all kinds of groups very satisfactorily. The  
nominee can decline but is less likely to. People in cohousing usually  
know who is busy and can't do it so they wouldn't be nominated. In any  
case, it is affirming to hear why people think you would do a good  
job. The person might think about serving in another year because of  
being selected that year.

In addition to the much greater likelihood that the person will serve,  
nominators also say why they think the person would do a good job and  
what they expect the person to do. This is both clarifying and  
affirming. In accepting, there is also the opportunity for the nominee  
to say, I can do this part of the job but not that. The job  
description can be changed on the spot and a second person selected to  
do the other part of the job. If the first nominee declines, you  
repeat the process.

One cohousing community that uses this method selects 8 people in  
approx. 2 hours with no prior work. Our nominating teams are composed  
of 4 people who then speak to the 20-30 people nominated plus having  
their own meetings to organize the interviews, discuss the results,  
and decide on the slate. If there are objections, there are more  
meetings with the objectors and with themselves to make a decision.  
That is a lot of person hours every year.

And not everyone even has the time to serve on the nominating  
committee so they have no say in the process except to make a  
nomination.

> But if you go through a few people this way, and you have everyone  
> pick 10 out of 50+
> members for each role, I'm guessing that the system would end up too  
> diluted.


If you are starting with 50 people, I assume that you would then have  
a run-off. In our case it is the nominating process that is causing  
the dissatisfaction. Some people do like it. Many others are not aware  
of alternatives. Some hate it.

Sharon
----
Sharon Villines
http://www.sociocracy.info