Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: decision-making process

[Sharon Villines (sharon]

On Sep 16, 2014, at 10:11 PM, Alan Weiner <weineralan [at] gmail.com> wrote:

> \We are 3 months into starting a co-housing community in western MA.
> We will soon be discussing how we will make group decisions.
> I don't think we have to reinvent the wheel on this one.
> Consensus and sociocracy seem to be common strategies.

Sociocracy and consensus are not opposite things. Sociocracy is based on 
consensus decision-making.

Consensus is a decision-making method.

Sociocracy is a governance method. 

Sociocracy establishes a structure for policy decision-making (the planning or 
leading) and operations (the doing). 

Policy decisions are made by consensus. Operations decisions are made by the 
leader of the work group or as the group decides. The working group could also 
decide to use consensus for day to day decisions.

The sociocratic governance method allows you to delegate decisions to those who 
are most affected by them and still ensure that they are within the policies of 
the whole community. 

For example, the CH cleaning group can decide by consensus to change their 
cleaning days to Sundays instead of Saturdays and to clean together rather than 
individually as they please. That's a decision they can make without 
consultation with anyone as long as they observe the policy that community 
brunches on Sunday take preference. (And announce it so everyone knows what to 
expect.)

In sociocracy these groups are called circles but they can be called anything. 
All the circles are tied together by a coordinating circle that is composed of 
members of all the other circles. The coordinating team 

(1) makes policies that affect more than one circle and 
(2) that circles have been unable to decide, 
(3) AND does long range planning. 

The coordinating circle involves representatives and leaders of all circles in 
doing long-range planning--3-5 years-- and provides a larger perspective on 
difficult or complex decisions.

Communities can still reserve some decisions, like the annual budget, capital 
improvements, widely contentious issues, etc., for full circle meetings -- all 
circles meeting together.

All policy decisions are made by consensus. Policy decisions are those that 
affect future actions and decisions -- the budget, job descriptions, scope of 
work, standards, etc.

Day to day operations decisions are made however the circle decides, usually by 
the leader or as delegated to members of the circle. In a gardening crew, for 
example, the leader may assign people to various tasks or decide which needs to 
be done first and delegate those jobs. Or they may decide to all work together 
on one task. (our gardening pod did this last year with great satisfaction at 
seeing each job finished quickly and completely.)

The governance structure establishes a clear communications and control channel 
so decentralized decision-making works without fragmentation. In small 
communities where there can be a lot of communications in the course a week, 
this may not seem important. In larger communities it becomes very important.  
You can't talk to everyone all the time and the work is more complex (more 
buildings, more financial concerns, more children, etc.)

A long way around to say that sociocracy is a governance method that both 
requires consensus decision-making and supports it. It is designed to enable 
consensus decision-making. There is no other governance method designed to do 
this.

There is more information and explanations of "policy" and "operations" at 
http://www.sociocracy.info";
Sharon
----
Sharon Villines
Sociocracy: A Deeper Democracy
http://www.sociocracy.info