I’m looking for a decision making process which incorporates a consensus-based approach and ideally, a supportive process for having more difficult conversations.
Currently the RadHR team is just 3 of us, so it doesn’t need to have a ton of bells and whistles, but wanted to see if there was any simple starting points within the community that hadn’t been uploaded yet.
Over time, we want to think about a wider decision making process for the site, that is based on democratic membership involvement, but feel that we need to see how this community develops first. For now, just some words that describe how we want to practice our values as a small group, would be super helpful!
Hi Liam,
In the last 2-3 years, our worker co-op has been using sociocracy. As it is a version of consensus decision making, consent is the guiding principle but the “extra moving parts” help determine what is and isn’t a “critical concern”. A critical concern is something that a member would voice which, if not addressed, would prevent a motion from being passed. Some of our members spoke at the online 2022 Sociocracy for All conference. You can see the video here. The organisation Sociocracy for All also has some great resources.
People Support Co-op were the bunch that gave us our first intro workshop to sociocracy. You seem to know them already judging by their website which is great.
At the Braich Goch we use a method honed during the civil rights movement called The People’s Circle, it was taught to the people I work with when they were a part of the International School for Bottom Up Organising (ISBO). It is a very simple but effective tool where there are clear roles which can be assigned differently in each session, and everyone gets equal access to time and space. There is room for complexity for difficult discussions but with someone who is experienced in the facilitator role the method focuses on the points of agreement and action towards decision-making.
We could maybe offer a training in this technique if you would find it helpful, i can check with my colleagues? We are quite at capacity at the moment but maybe we could find a way.
Thanks @jed! Am broadly aware of Sociocracy as a wider organisational structuring approach, but hadn’t thought about it as a decision making process, per se. I will do some searching. Are there any basic intro resources you know of that describe how decisions are made in Sociocracy?
And yes, we work with PSC, who are amazing, so if we go down that route, good to know we have excellent support available.
Oooooh! Thanks @Lita! I’ll be collating a few different approaches and ideas over the next few weeks and will let you know if it feels like it could be a good fit for us. Do you have a sense of whether it would be a bit much in a team of 3? In terms of the facilitation load on 1/3 of the group at any given time, mostly?