Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Meeting Length in Sociocratic Communities.

[Ted Rau (ted]

Hey there!
We're sociocratic, and we have 1-2h meetings, depending on the circle. It
happens here and there that we'll agree to go 10min longer, for example for
a juicy check-out.
It can happen that a topic doesn't get completed but that's rare when we're
already at a point where there is a proposal. It's simply rare that
unexpected things happen, I would say. We know the issues well, and we know
the positions in the community well.
I guess that's the advantage of not being a new community!

And I personally don't mind long meetings if they are meaningful. If it's
just some empty chatter for a long time or unproductive accusations, I do
get bored and protective of my time. So to me, it's less about the absolute
number of minutes and more about whether I feel like my life energy was
well spent.

*(switching hats, from member of a sociocratic community to facilitation
trainer)*
I guess I'm not fully sure what the situation is so I'll write about two
possible scenarios:
1. There's a ready-made proposal written at the beginning of the meeting.
Then there are unexpected objections and everything takes longer.

   - My comments on that would be that it looks like proposals aren't
   getting the feedback they need, triggering too many things to talk about in
   a handful of minutes.
   - The other comments are on process -
      - There are a lot of extra options
      <https://www.sociocracyforall.org/strategies-for-integrating-objections/>
      in integrating objections that people don't think about. They often tweak
      and tweak the proposal to adjust to everyone's preferences and that takes
      time and is simply not as promising as other ways because people
get caught
      in their theories.
      - The other wondering I have is whether you are really dealing with
      objections, or preferences. But that's hard t discern for me from afar.

2. The other scenario is when groups are trying to do too much in 25 min.
It would require tons of discipline to get from "there's the problem" to
"let's brainstorm solutions" to a proposal and then the consent process
within 25min. So in case that's what you're doing, consider sequencing it
into 3 meetings: One meeting to understand the issue and look at deeper
patterns, one to explore options (then have someone synthesize it into a
proposal), and the third meeting is consent (Read more
<https://www.sociocracyforall.org/how-to-have-quick-meetings/> and here
<https://www.sociocracyforall.org/problem-solving-steps-for-groups/>.)

The other considerations are circle size, overall capacity of people to
stay calm and curious, focus and experience of the facilitator etc etc. I
find that each issue in governance always has dozens of contributing
factors because so many things show up in every given moment. My colleague
Hope Wilder write a general overview of the most common reasons
<https://www.sociocracyforall.org/6-tips-to-facilitate-a-meeting-like-a-pro/>
meetings go over.


On Sat, Dec 21, 2024 at 8:43 AM Barbara Smith via Cohousing-L <
cohousing-l [at] cohousing.org> wrote:

> We are a new, over-55 cohousing community in Massachusetts, using
> Sociocracy as our governance. We limit meetings to two hours, and some
> circles allow 90 minutes. That makes sense because, given our age, we've
> had our fill of long meetings. But sometimes a topic is controversial and
> members become emotional. Facilitation falls apart. What could have been a
> short easy "consent" topic, can take (as in a recent meeting) 25 minutes,
> with members, including the facilitator, frustrated, even angry. But the
> issue isn't resolved because the meeting has to end at 2 pm!!  Yes, I know
> that emotions need to be dealt with (I've watched Laird Schaub's video on
> the topic several times, as well as his critique of Sociocracy. All makes
> sense.)
> But now, I just want to know: how long do other Sociocratic communities
> allow for meetings? Is the duration open-ended when emotions arise? In such
> a case (above) do we end on time and explore the topic off-line? (We still
> Zoom our meetings.) Finally: for all communities using other governance
> (such as Consensus), how long are your meetings? Do young people tolerate
> long meetings better than Oldsters? Thanks in advanceBarbara Smith, Hager
> Homestead, Littleton, MAbrownsmith82 [at] yahoo.com
> _________________________________________________________________
> Cohousing-L mailing list -- Unsubscribe, archives and other info at:
> http://L.cohousing.org/info
>
>
>
>

-- 

Leader of Content & Training Sociocracy For All
<http://www.sociocracyforall.org/>
Certified sociocracy consultant  <https://www.iscb.earth/team/ted-rau/>
I offer coaching/consulting <http://www.sociocracyforall.org/coaching>