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Sociocracy combines consent decision-making, a decentralized system of authority and intentional processes to improve our decisions and processes over time into a governance system that supports effective and efficient process while increasing connection, listening and co-creation among members.
Sociocracy is used in businesses, communities, nonprofits, cooperatives, grassroots groups and in education. See the sociocracy resources on this page to get started.
Go one step deeper:
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Read in our free eBook
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Download the free ebook and learn more! The eBook covers the basic aspects and tools of sociocracy – perfect for people who want to read to get a fairly comprehensive overview.
Monthly free info sessions
“I want to talk to a real human being.”
Our free info sessions give you an overview within 60min. They are taught by advanced students and have time for your questions. They happen once a month.
Primer: Learn on your own
“I need something engaging on my own time”
Too busy for a date in your calendar? Learn on your own time with our Primer – a 75min video series. Includes links to examples and deeper reading. Start anytime.
Books from Sociocracy for All
Many Voices One Song
The practical sociocracy handbook written by the co-founders of Sociocracy For All. 300 pages full of real-life support!
Who Decides Who Decides?
How to start a group so everyone can have a voice!
Let’s Decide Together
The definitive guidebook for practicing sociocracy with children. Children can decide with sociocracy too!
Sociocracy topics
Each of these short summaries gives you an overview of the sociocracy resources for you to learn more.
More: Selection process | Writing proposals | Implementation
Making group decisions: consent
Consent is the default decision-making method in sociocracy. In consent, a decision is made when no circle member has an objection. Every person will consent if they can accept the proposal, and object if the proposal has negative implications with respect to the circle’s shared aim.
A group moves to consent in the consent process: presenting the proposal and clarifying questions, quick reactions and a round of consent/objections.
Different from blocking a proposal in consensus decision-making, objections are welcomed as valuable information and they can be integrated by modifying the proposal, its term or its measurements.
Explore the language of consent.
Deepen your understanding by viewing the Visual Thesaurus map for Consent
Circles and roles: who decides what?
Decisions are made in circles, a defined team of people working together towards their circle’s aim. Circle members make collective policy decisions in their domain and they define operational roles to empower individuals to take on responsibility and circle roles to self-manage their circle.
Circles are connected through parent circle/sub-circle relationships of nested domains, leading to a system where everything can be decided locally in the system, without centralizing power at the center. To make sure two circles are connected, we double-link them with two people as members in both circles.
Sociocracy resources on structure: Overview article on structure
Explore the language of circles and roles.
Deepen your understanding by viewing the Visual Thesaurus map for circles and roles.
Meetings with sociocracy
Sociocratic meetings are inclusive and efficient with a clear format:
- Opening: check-in and ADMIN
- Content of the meeting
- Consent to agenda
- Agenda items
- Review
- Check-out (meeting evaluation)
Facilitation is a focus of sociocracy. Rounds – the practice of speaking one by one – are commonly used in meetings to keep equivalence and focus. Rounds also make it easy to run virtual meetings in video calls.
Explore the language of sociocratic meetings.
Deepen your understanding by viewing the Visual Thesaurus map for sociocratic meetings.
Performance
All sociocratic processes are built on the basic idea of continuous improvement. Feedback is a way to improve what we do, both by creating feedback-rich organizations, a commitment to interpersonal feedback and formal, peer-oriented performance reviews. Other practices are: meeting evaluations in meetings, reviews for all policy decisions and for role selections.
Leadership in sociocracy is peer-oriented and based on accountability to own commitments and to the circle. Many people also combine sociocracy with restorative justice or Nonviolent Communication to align their practice with their values and to improve their effectiveness and communication.
Explore the language of performance.
Deepen your understanding by viewing the Visual Thesaurus map for feedback and improvement.
Selection process
A sociocratic circle chooses together who will fill an operational or circle role. The most common process to choose that person is the selection process with nominations, change round and consent.
Explore the language of the selection process.
Deepen your understanding by viewing the Visual Thesaurus map for selection process.
Ready to learn?
More sociocracy resources: articles and videos
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Why self-governance? Why self-empathy? And why now?
Language: Español (written Aug 12 2020) 2020 has been quite a year so far! As a parent, one of the most heartbreaking moments for me in these last months has […]
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Circles in sociocracy: an effective organizational structure
Circle structure in sociocracy: nested circles, linking, helping circles and special circles.
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Representation of those most impacted by decisions: Tools for when impact exceeds circle roles (Deborah Chang, Sofie Malm, Hanna Fischer)
Are we making decisions that are affecting more people than are in the room? How can we be more careful about representation? In this session, we will give examples of situations where decisions are affecting a broader group of people. We will offer tools to support us being more inclusive in the decision-making process.
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We Would Rather be Right than Happy
Gina Simm | 16:00 UTC
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“What if people don’t cooperate with others?”
In this article, we’re going to look at how to have a systemic view of meetings (as one of the governance tools and practices we use most often in sociocracy).
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Self-Organization – a leap into the unknown
There are organizations, and in them people, who will never see the value in involving employees in shared governance. There are those who, although they feel the growing discomfort of working ‘in the old way’, remain full of fears and doubts about the incomprehensible concept of self-organization.
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The 5 Minute First Aid Kit for a meeting
We offer a guide for facilitators or other meeting members to use when something unexpected happens in a meeting. It offers a structure, adding 5 minutes to the meeting to process the unexpected event.
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Case study: Asheville Movement Collective
AMC is a dynamic dance community focus in Asheville. It has achieved remarkable success, acknowledged as largely due to the adoption of Sociocracy in 2009. The resulting growth in membership was well-managed; the organization was growing in responsiveness to the many pressures of the various dance communities it attracted into its membership, and it recognizes…
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To decide or not to decide?
3 decisions every young organization will make. They will happen either way, either consciously with a good and inclusive system, or unconsciously with old biases kicking in. Which would you rather do?
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Otherness
We are the other
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Sociocracy 3.0 with Children
James Priest
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A case study of a community-based research program: The Hawai’i Partnership for Climate-Smart Commodities
This article explores the ambitious implementation of sociocracy within the Hawai’i Partnership for Climate-Smart Commodities Program (HiCSC), an initiative funded by the United States Department of Agriculture’s Climate Smart Commodities Program involving a broad consortium of university academic and community-based organizations across Hawai’i.
