Sociocracy in 
Intentional Communities conference 2022
Creating a future that works for all today
Description
Sometimes intentional communities don’t use Sociocracy’s Proposal-Forming process because they believe it’s too complicated. In this presentation, you’ll learn an easy, enjoyable way to help community members create effective proposals that aren’t complicated: by filling in a blank template on a shared screen that everyone can see. Using this template, as circle members brainstorm “Aspects of the Proposal” in rounds the minute-taker types each Aspect into the “Aspects” column in the template (including the Aspect to later measure and evaluate the implemented proposal). And as circle members then brainstorm “Specific Proposal Ideas” in rounds the minute-taker types each one into the “Proposal Ideas” column of the template, adjacent to each Aspect it relates to in the “Aspects” column (which includes specific ways the circle will later measure and evaluate the implemented proposal). Because this template process is so visual and step-by-step, circle members see their potential proposal gradually grow before their eyes. And each person sees that each of their ideas is included; none are lost, dismissed, or ignored. The presentation will conclude with stories of two real communities that stopped using Proposal Forming and lost months of time trying to create important, complex proposals, which generated anxiety and conflict. When they began using Proposal-Forming again each community quickly finished their important proposals . . . and with little to no conflict!
Bio
Diana Leafe Christian, former editor of Communities magazine for 14 years, is author of Creating a Life Together: Practical Tools to Grow Ecovillages and Intentional Communities (now also in French, Italian Spanish, Russian, Korean, and Hebrew), and Finding Community: How to Join an Ecovillage or Intentional Community (New Society Publishers, 2003, 2005. She now recommends Sociocracy rather than classic or modified consensus for cohousing communities, ecovillages, and other kinds of intentional communities. With the ability to make Sociocracy simple and clear for how to use Sociocracy in a community setting, she has generated praise from workshop participants about how easily they learned Sociocracy, and — when they meet the “four necessary conditions” ** — how well they then implemented sociocracy effectively in their group. Diana has taught Sociocracy internationally since 2012, in the US and Canada, England, Scotland, France, Sweden, Russia, Columbia, Brazil, and Mexico, and taught it in online courses since 2019. She is an Associate Member of The Sociocracy Consulting Group (TSCG), a network of professional Sociocracy trainers in Canada, the US, and Australia.
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The Sociocracy in Intentional Communities Conference 2022 is organized sociocratically by SoFA’s Intentional Communities Circle
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