Sociocracy resources

Language: Español

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.

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Books from Sociocracy for All

Many Voices One Song. Shared Power with Sociocracy. By Ted Rau and Jerry Koch-Gonzalez

Many Voices One Song

The practical sociocracy handbook written by the co-founders of Sociocracy For All. 300 pages full of real-life support!

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Who Decides Who Decides?

How to start a group so everyone can have a voice!

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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.

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Consent

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Circles

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Meetings

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Performance

More: Selection process | Writing proposals | Implementation

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Making group decisions: consent

In sociocracy, we make decisions by consent. The goal is to make inclusive decisions fast.

Deciding by consent means no endless discussions and no coercion. A group simply approves a proposal when it's good enough.

With consent, decision-making gets easier and clear. Instead of arguing against each other, we're all on the same side.

A step-by-step consent process helps us make a decision together in an orderly way.

Talking one by one means more clarity, listening, participation, and sync.

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

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See it done

Circles and roles: who decides what?

We trust and empower committees that we call circles. A circle organizes the work and makes decisions together.

Every circle has clarity on their piece of the work and can get things done. Working together. Deciding together.

Two related circles are connected by two people as links. They enable flow of information and balance of power.

The General Circle in the middle makes sure all information comes together and all circles are aligned and clear.

We cluster regular tasks and decisions into roles. The circle sets the frame just enough for everyone to go do things.

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

1. Opening round. At the beginning of the meeting, people share how they are doing.

Meetings are effective, inclusive, and satisfying! Clear roles and a robust meeting template help with that.

2. Respectful of time and topics. We set a clear agenda together and stay on topic.

3. Agenda items. We discuss each agenda item and make use of rounds so everyone gets to speak and people listen to each other.

4. Closing round. At the end of each meeting, we do a full round of feedback on the meeting so we can improve meetings over time.

We track current and future agenda topics to stay accountable for what we care about.

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.

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See a meeting

Performance

Feedback is a wonderful way to improve together what we do.

If we make plans and review them together, we can learn from our experiences and improve what we do.

Trust goes both ways. People in roles are empowered to decide but also are expected to ask for advice and listen.

Instead of rigid plans for an unpredictable future, we experiment to feel our way forward by learning.

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

Each circle is self managed and picks by consent who will contribute how. For example, facilitator, secretary, leader, and delegate roles.

People are selected for a certain term. That way, we can spread leadership while maintaining clarity.

The circle picks those roles in an open and affirmative process, the 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.

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More sociocracy resources: articles and videos

  • Roles, jobs and salaries in sociocracy

    Roles, jobs and salaries in sociocracy

    On what basis do we decide salaries in sociocracy? Is it based on the sum of all roles? But how does that work? Or are there traditional “positions” in sociocracy too?

  • Self-set Salaries at Semco

    Self-set Salaries at Semco

    Christian Wandeler | Sep 29th, 16:00 – 16:40 UTC.

  • Monday Homeschool Co-operative – Story of a Sociocratic Homeschool cooperative

    Monday Homeschool Co-operative – Story of a Sociocratic Homeschool cooperative

    Language: Español Are you part of a volunteer organization with very flat hierarchy at the risk of burn out?  The Monday Homeschool Co-operative is a self proclaimed eclectic group of secular homeschoolers who have come together to create a vibrant, non-coercive learning community and to share skills and resources. The group does not seek to…

  • Working with Conflict

    Working with Conflict

    Karen Gimnig | 17:00 UTC

  • Conflict as a tension to steer by

    Conflict as a tension to steer by

    Language: Español Conflict as a tension to steer by The unwritten rules in many groups are clear: Be nice, avoid conflict at all costs and, if a conflict arises, see it as a “personal problem” of one perhaps problematic individual. In sociocracy, we have the opportunity to see things differently. A conflict or individual’s strong…

  • On interpersonal feedback

    Language: Español There is no right and wrong Many people are afraid of feedback. “Can I give you some feedback?” is typically followed by criticism, and we don’t do well with criticism. When we face criticism, the most typical reaction is to shut down, get reactive, defensive or withdraw. If you want your feedback to…

  • Family Heart Camp a Sociocracy case study

    Family Heart Camp a Sociocracy case study

    Language: Español [et_pb_section fb_built=”1″ admin_label=”section” _builder_version=”3.22.3″][et_pb_row admin_label=”row” _builder_version=”3.25″ background_size=”initial” background_position=”top_left” background_repeat=”repeat”][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”3.25″ custom_padding=”|||” custom_padding__hover=”|||”][et_pb_text admin_label=”Text” _builder_version=”3.25.1″ background_size=”initial” background_position=”top_left” background_repeat=”repeat”] Interested in Non-violent communication and building strong community structures? Family HEART Camp (FHC) provides children and adults with a week-long summer camp experience at various camping locations in the U.S. Founded off of the principles…

  • The myth of natural flow

    The myth of natural flow

    “Why do we need a format to speak? Can’t we just talk naturally?!” What feels “natural” or fair to people in meetings is deeply impacted by informal power structures and biases. Fair meetings require intentional formats.

  • Saying yes! to working and no! to stumbling blocks

    Saying yes! to working and no! to stumbling blocks

    What’s an objection, and what do we do with it? The good news is that objections are a good thing!

  • Vision, Mission, and Aims in Sociocracy

    Vision, Mission, and Aims in Sociocracy

    Sociocracy uses vision, mission, and aims to clarify the goals of the organization and what you’re working towards as a group.

  • Sociocracy a la carte?

    Sociocracy a la carte?

    Can one just pick and choose from sociocracy and build your own governance system? Or is it a package deal and one has to use ALL the tools?

  • Experiments with The Ready

    Experiments with The Ready

    Ashley Reid Smith | Sep 29th, 16:00 – 16:20 UTC.