Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Quorum

[Sharon Villines (sharon]

On May 13, 2013, at 2:05 PM, "R.N. Johnson" <cohoranda [at] yahoo.com> wrote:

> I think that proxies and decisions by email/ phone are not a good idea 
> because you can't really have meaningful group discussion that way. Email and 
> phone calls are great supplements to the group discussion

A distinction here is between policy decisions and operational decisions. 
Policy decisions are those that state what will be done in the future. 
Operational decisions are about what will be done now. Operational decisions 
can often be made on the telephone or email, and often more efficiently. 

A Team Policy: Decisions that fall within current policy can be made without a 
meeting if three members of the team feel comfortable doing so.

Operational Decision: In an email discussion this afternoon while the plumber 
was here, Mary, Tom, and Linda decided to replace the blankety valve on the 
clothes washer. It is within the team budget for repairs, replacement of the 
washer is not planned for two years, and we saved a service call.

Budgets, hiring, assignment of roles and responsibilities, allocation of 
resources (human & physical) are policy decisions -- whether they are 
accompanied by a long proposal or not. They still set policy. Electing Harry to 
take over the garden is a policy decision that is simply recorded in the team 
minutes.

A decision about the design and management of the garden is a policy that would 
probably require a more detailed and well-considered proposal that would 
probably take several meeting discussions and require a decision by the whole 
community.

Sharon
----
Sharon Villines
Elegance in Organization
http://www.sociocracy.info