Facilitation in sociocracy
“Hey, my name is Ted and I teach facilitation in sociocracy. Good meetings are core and center because skilled facilitators can help the group be equals and move forward. Being heard and understood matters and creates a healthy and safe team culture.
Whether you’re preparing the agenda for a board meeting, your community or your team meeting, meeting facilitation is essential for any group.”
Facilitation sheet!
A sheet for facilitators
– everything on one page!
Spanish | Chinese | Danish | French | Polish | Swedish | Hebrew | Portuguese | Italian
Want to translate it? Contact info@sociocracyforall.org for an editable version.
See a real meeting
Opening round
ca. 5 min
Check-in round. Everyone shares how they are entering the meeting
(A good chance for people to get to know you better!)
ADMIN
ca. 1 min
Making sure the circle is ready for the meeting:
- Attendance (Who is here/absent? Roles filled?)
- Duration (How long is this meeting?)
- Minutes (Last meeting’s minutes ok?)
- Info (any announcements outside of the circle’s domain?)
- Next meeting (When are we meeting next? Or, who schedules?)
Consent to the agenda
ca. 1 min
- Understand the agenda proposal
- (Asking for reactions/additions if desired)
- Consent/integrate objections to the agenda proposal
Agenda items
- Reports →
e.g. reports from sub-circle or parent circle, reports on metrics - Explorations →
e.g giving feedback, brainstorming, generating proposals - Decisions ↓
e.g. policy decisions, selections processes, possibly significant operational decisions, policy reviews
(examples)
Update backlog
ca. 2 min
Check-out
ca. 5 min
- content of the meeting
- interpersonal dynamics
- process
Facilitation classes online!
For people with experience, or for those who would like to observe sociocracy in practice. Join us to play with facilitation scenarios. Find an upcoming session!
Meeting Posters
These posters are useful for meeting rooms to remember the basic patterns of Sociocratic meetings.
The transparency of a visible poster creates shared understanding and accountability to an agreed-upon format.
If you’d like to print them all at once, use this pdf: high resolution posters.
Oh, and you can say thank you with a little donation.
Do you want to translate them? Send an email to info@sociocracyforall.org and receive a no-text image to add your translations.
Integrating objections
1. Understand
2. Explore
3. Synthesize
Allow for clarifying questions
How do you relate to the objection?
Do you have ideas for amendments?
Possible strategies:
- modify the proposal
- shorten the term
- measure the concern (more info)
and go back to consent round
(full process)
Featured Resources on Meeting Facilitation
How (not) to side-track a meeting
It’s easy to get lost or side-tracked in a meeting! Here’s How (not) to side-track a meeting … or at least how to find your way back pretty fast! Below is a list of typical behaviors that slow down meetings. They are common. They are wide-spread and omnipresent. Learn...
The language of collaboration
What can natural languages teach us about self-governance? Maybe governance is to collaboration what language is to communication.
What matters more, product or process?
Some people want to make progress. Some want to focus on good process. This article describes the typical mindset patterns in managing those two desires and energies.
“What if people don’t cooperate?” A systemic view of meetings
We understand difficult situations in meetings better if we take a systemic view of organizations and see incidents as indicators for the whole culture. Find a list of what’s underneath the moment you see.
How to run an engaging board meeting
Want a board meeting that is clear and engaging? This article offers a template that helps you prepare and run a refreshing and productive board meeting!
The tragedy of the meeting: Meeting time as an example of a common pool resource
Meeting time is lifetime shared with others. How do we share this resources well? This article highlights Prosocial’s Core Design Principles with the example of meeting time as a common pool resource and shows how sociocratic tools help share time in a collaborative way.
Using Sociocracy for Decision-Making in Social Services and Medical Care
Presentation by Norma Wassel Medical and human services are routinely delivered in a hierarchical system with rigid roles of authority. This results in a process that often disempowers staff as well as the individuals and families receiving assistance. How can we implement Sociocracy in these systems? With case examples!
Sociocracy as a solution for succession and organizational effectiveness – NGO case
Presentation by Irena Kaszewska. Description: Szarża is a horse riding association with a 35-year history. It has always based on volunteer work, creating a unique community, inclusive and active. With a growing scale of operations, the ad-hoc and intuitive management style of volunteers started to be insufficient. Sociocracy, piloted on a small scale, proved to be just the right solution. We are now at the brink of full-scale implementation, aware of many challenges, and full of hopes.
Sociocracy in large groups?
Sociocracy was developed with small groups in mind. When and how can we apply it to large groups?
The day I consented to a proposal I hated
It was yet another Thursday morning 7.30am – our weekly support circle meeting in Sociocracy For All with 3 staff people present. We were all stretched thin. The last few months had been a phase of wild growth, and although exciting and wonderful, the constantly evolving roles and processes had been wearing on us.
Sociocracy and virtual meetings – engaging, clear and fair
I’m in virtual meetings every day. Here is what I love about them!
Comparison of decision-making methods
Getting to consent
A presentation about what consent decision making is, how to get there and what to do if there is no consent.
Meeting clip: accepting a new member
A consent process accepting a new member into a circle with clarifying questions, quick reactions and consent.
Meeting clip: circle report
Example of a quick report to a circle from its parent circle
Meeting clip: selection process
Example of a selection process
Meeting clip: writing a proposal
Picture forming and proposal shaping and – almost – towards a decision. Also shows how to formally postpone a decision.
Meeting clip: ADMIN phase
A quick checklist to make sure the circle is ready to start a meeting
See a selection process during a training
Jerry Koch-Gonzalez leading a group through a selection process.
Pop-up sociocracy
How can you use sociocracy for a small project? How can you use it for a group that is just starting out and not ready to adopt a whole system?
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!
Decision Making through conflict
SoFA colleague Chen explaining not only feelings, needs and strategies but also the harder part – overcoming the adversarial story and expanding willingness
A facilitator’s guide to keeping meetings on track
Stop overthinking. Start doing. Improve from there.
Decision-making methods: a comparison
The way we come to a decision has a lot of influence on how people behave, how many voices can be heard, how they feel about the group they are a part of and what quality decision is going to be made. The pros and cons of autocratic decision-making, voting, consensus and consent.
The sociocratic meeting format
The sociocratic meeting format
