Combining Sociocracy with NVC Webinar Recording

This webinar recording on Nonviolent Communication (NVC) and sociocracy is from April 12, 2022.

Using Nonviolent Communication (NVC) can help you with the right tools/language. In this webinar, we brought together 3 panelists who are combining sociocracy with NVC to tackle these challenges. For them, NVC is an integral part of their daily practice work. Get inspired how to combine NVC in your daily practice and learn more about it!

NVC and sociocracy – are they different and separate, or where are the convergences? When they learned sociocracy, why did they want to add NVC? Or, when they learned NVC, where did they see gaps that led them to sociocracy? What are examples of situations where they noticed that, and what has changed in their practice because of that?

Panelists:
Jerry Koch-Gonzalez helps companies and organizations implement sociocracy to create adaptive and effective organizations where all members’ voices matter. He is a consultant and certified trainer in both Dynamic Governance/ Sociocracy and Compassionate Communication (NVC).

Nara Nishitani has been working as a facilitator, regenerative culture designer and self-management consultant for the past 9 years. She transitioned from a career in the IT industry where she worked for more than 15 years. Her work is based on the Regenerative Paradigm, organizations as living systems and Sociocracy. She’s also a member of Sociocracia Brasil, Regenerativa and Teal Brasil movement. She is eager to share her insights for us to cultivate even more regenerative organizations.

Audrée Morin. After traveling to ecovillages and regenerative projects for two years, I dedicated myself to energize the Ecovillage movement and to learn and propagate the tools that facilitate living together, collaboration and interconnection. Those tools include Non-Violent Communication, Sociocracy and the Ecovillage Regenerative Design Principles. I’m a working member at Sociocracy for All, where I contribute to spread and support the use of Sociocracy in Intentional Communities.

Transcript:

Romana:
We have today Nara is from Sao Paulo Brazil joining us. Nara Nishitani has been working as a facilitator for Regeneron safe culture designer and self management consultant for the past nine years. She transitioned from a career in the IT industry where she worked for more than 15 years. Work is based on regenerative paradigm organizations as living systems and sociocracy.
She’s also a member of Sociocracia Brazil, regenerativa until Brazil movement and very eager to share with us her insights for us to cultivate and even more regenerative organizations.

Also joining us this afternoon is Audrée Morin. She’s been traveling ecovillages and regenerative projects for two years and dedicated herself to energize the Ecovillage movement to learn and propagate tools that facilitate living together collaboration and interconnection. Now those tools include Nonviolent Communication, sociocracy, ecovillage regenerative design principles.
Audrée is also a working member of sociocracy where she contributes to spread and supports the use of sociocracy in intentional communities.

And last but not least, joining us, Jerry Koch-Gonzalez, and Jerry helps companies and organizations to implement sociocracy to create adaptive and effective organizations where all members are measured. In the consultant and certified trainer of both dynamic governance and compassionate communication, together, I’m sure they will be able to share with us and also inspire us to learn more.

So we’ll start with the first presentation. Can I pass it to you.

Idit
Yes you can thank you. Yeah, like you said we’re going to have about five minutes to hear from each one of our panelists today. And then we’re going to go into just some open conversations for about 20 minutes, and then we’ll have some more questions and then breakout rooms. So we have a really packed and interactive time together.
Nara, can we maybe start with you? Would you present to us what you do how you do it?

Nara Nishitani
Well, it’s hard for me to say one thing because it’s so huge. But I will try to summarize, and I’m sorry for the ones that are new to NVC and to sociocracy because this is not the place for you to understand the basics of any of them. So we’re just going to, you know, straight into the point and then afterwards, maybe you can just look more into understanding like the basic principles and everything. Okay. So what I would like to share with you guys and I know that the ones that are practitioners might, you know, understand form that in a different way than the others but I’ll try to make it as simple as possible.

Like the way that I have been connecting all these social technologies, so like Ramana said, I came from, my journey was a journey of transition, right, where I came from the corporate world, and I went to eco villages and I lived in villages for two years. And then I started studying Sociocracy Non Violent Communication, Dragon Dreaming and like all these different tools and ways of organizing ourselves. And then I got to study the Regenerative Paradigm. And now like what I do with organizations is something that is quite holistic. So I look at the organizations as nested systems, and what I believe is that you cannot work in a single area at a time. So if we’re implementing sociocracy, of course, you need to look at the inner and individual aspects as well as the relations between the relationships between people, right? So if we look at, like all these dimensions, sort of simultaneously, and then we know that there are some interventions required in each of them, so that the organization can transform. And then when I arrive, I have this kind of diagnosis of where this organization is and then a cultural design process to establish what is going to be the next step for each implementation. So I’m not going to talk about implementation here but just you know, for you to get a gist of, of these dimensions I’m talking about right. So on the individual level, I work a lot with proposing dynamics for people to understand about their own needs and feelings and you know what’s going on inside them. So we talked a lot about helping them self reflect and create their own strategies to get their inner regeneration. So like mental health issues that we’re facing and all those, you know, aspects of how they are in the work. environment, right? When it comes to creating relations. So if these individuals are collaborating in an organization means they’re going to connect to each other. So conflicts will arise, different feelings will arise. And then this is where NVC enters, you know, to support them in creating this, like in evolving this ability to self empathize with themselves and what’s going on in terms of feelings and needs, but also being able to express this to each other. So how they are going to say what their needs are and make requests and and how they’re going to listen empathically to the others, you know, what are the others feeling and what they need and so that they can co create something that is good for everybody in this relationship, right? So at this level of teams, I work a lot with NVC, but other tools as well. I’m not going to mention that because the topic today is NVC, but you know, there are different tools that are in this dimension as well. And in the organizational, like the structure of the organization, is where I consider that sociocracy comes in, right because we’re breaking from a hierarchical structure and creating a new structure based in circles. And roles and policies. So this is something that needs to be clear for people that they can create these structures and to distribute power and to have at each time more and more clarity of responsibilities, so that they can cooperate in a self organized organization. So this is a very important aspect of what I do, helping organizations evolve. And then the others are really supporting this to manifest to help and when it’s a particular because I feel like without a clear structure, then you know, like emotional and psychological safety is not possible. And then the other way, as well, right? So we’re creating all these strategies, changing structure and at the same time, building cognitive capacity in people.

Nara
And then of course, this is for a purpose, organization exists for a purpose. So there’s this bigger dimension of which is the contribution of the organization to the ecological systems and social systems that the organization belongs to. Right. So this is the model regenerative perspective. So just like in five minutes, in a nutshell, explain a little bit of how I work and how I see organizations nowadays and how you know, Sociocracy and NVC comes in into this bigger picture.

Idit
Yes, thank you. Yeah. And we’d have some more time to go in with questions as a lot of questions come up just from hearing you speak. Thank you.

Nara
I told Romanna that this could be like a presentation and it’s like we could spend one hour or two hours just on these.

Idit
Maybe?, we’re always looking for more webinars that interest us. So we always have space, and maybe we can move on and hear from you Audree, about your experience.

Audree
Hi, everybody.

My experience of NVC and Sociocracy has almost been hard to think of them separately for me, because I think one is so much into the other because they really come from similar values and paradigms. So it’s been a reflection like okay, now I need to separate them and see how I use this one and this one and how I use this one in this one. And I want to go with just concrete examples of where I saw that one was in the other one. The first time that I realized that NVC was very much part of Sociocracy. I learned NVC first. I had the Introduction training and then I went to a couple of practice groups and I really started using it in my life. And then I was taking the Empowered Learning Circle class with the SoFA in the context of an ecovillage working group called the Global Ecovillage Network and we wanted to get more into Sociocratic. And as I was reading the text, it started, it talked about roles, elections, and how about what you do if you’re scared of hurting feelings, because in our current culture, we do secret ballots so that we don’t hurt people’s feelings. And in sociocracy we bring in transparency, because it allows us to give feedback and to learn from that feedback, and to build trust between us and create connections by being really authentic. But then when you get authentic, there’s a lot of resistance from people because we’re not used to being in a safe space where we can really talk about each other sincerely, and so when there was a little part about how to object to your friend being nominated in the role, and how to give feedback about what you felt like for why you would object, it feels hard to say, and as I was reading it was talking about oh, identify your needs, so that you can really take responsibility for what you’re sharing. And you can, rather than just objecting, you can have a clear request about what good people do to support you in the context of that person, feeling the role. So really taking responsibility for yourself rather than judging, like, oh, this person is a bad facilitator and I object, that would hurt feelings much more. And also, there was a part about feedback not being the cause of the other person’s feelings, but feedback really being the trigger and the real cause is whatever needs they have, because we could, What I like about sociocracy is that we bring feedback as a gift, and makes me think of permaculture as well. Feedback from failure. So all of that when I was reading that I went to see my notes again, and I wrote NVC! and I remember having an aha moment of like, okay, those two things that I’m learning that I thought were different are just different strategies, but they really come from a similar worldview. And that’s what I want to contribute to bring to the world, a place where we can be safe, and we can at the same time, be authentic, because it’s also hard to be authentic and safe, and to not be authentic and be safe. So we want to feel like, okay, I can be myself and I can be received. So I find that in the context of sociocracy we’re constantly a group of people working together. So I really like that narrow shoulders, the different levels and at that level of the group or the team.
It makes such a difference when people have started doing that NVC style, introspection and knowing themselves and another place where I see it. I can kind of see the difference from people that have done this introspection and started taking responsibility and and knowing better the difference between their feelings, their needs, their strategies, just untangling the spaghettis, I call this work we do in NVC, separating all the spaghetties from each other.

It makes it easier to object because if you’re going to say it doesn’t work for me, it takes me from being able to do my work well, It’s not even in my tolerance zone. I’m noticing that some people just don’t know. And like when we’re more conflict averse. We’re really less, It’s less easy to say no to something, people in some groups that I’ve worked with. Were really like, Oh, it’s okay. It’s okay. It’s okay. And then three months later, we’ve made a decision and now it doesn’t work. And now there’s a crisis in the group, and conflicts don’t get resolved. So I’ve kind of decided that I mostly want to work sociocritical with people that also do NVC because it makes things so much more complete. And I like the structure that sociocracy brings us to work together. And I like how sociocracy brings in the human aspect of it.
And just to finish when I was doing the academy. There were many badges. It’s a learning program based on badges that were about relationships because it’s like an integral part of sociocracy we’re trying to make everybody smarter. We’re trying to build trust between each other. So there were the better emotional emergencies and handling disagreements with care and strategies for better listening. And I felt like my NVC draining was kind of cheating. I was like, Well, I know what to say. to that. I’m not learning it, learning it. I’m just reinvesting some knowledge. So yeah, they really worked well together. And some principles of NVC are already in sociocracy. And some principles of sociocracy are already in NVC and they they really come from what I find

Yeah, thank you. Beautiful Audree
Thank you so much. Let’s carry on with Jerry and then we’ll move into some questions and discussion.

Jerry

Okay, so be it this could be put in the context of my own story.

Jerry
When I was in my 20s and 30s, I was part of a group called the movement for a new society, and the basic principles of that group were coming, well, the phrases that we used were revolutionary non violence or transformative non violence. And so we worked for social change from that perspective, taking as our mentors in a sense of Gandhi and the Movement for the Liberation of India from British domination, and also inspiration from Martin Luther King and the Movement for the Liberation of black people in United States from white domination, and also from liberation and full, full empowerment, full capacity of women, you know, with feminism movement, all of those things, what revolutionary non violence would mean to me is that all voices matter, every voice matters in the decision making that we are trying to do, and that everybody’s needs matter in what we are trying to do. And by needs, because we mentioned that word a lot when we talk about NVC. You know, some of the needs are the obvious things of food, air, water shelter, but then we want to know that in order to survive and thrive as human beings, we also have needs of belonging, connection to matter, creativity and play, you know, this there’s lots of different things that we could say are really essential for our survival and, and thriving.

So this group, moving through society, we did training for activists. So that’s when I fell in love with training. And we train people in consensus, which over the years is like, now I do training and consent, which is what we do with sociocracy. And we were a group, we were an organization of small collectives around the country. And so now with sociocracy We are an organization of linked circles, kind of the same principles.

And the third element of sociocracy is going to be the three core elements of sociocracy: decision making by consent, organizational structure by linked circles. And the third one is continuous evolution through feedback.

And when I was part of that group, we published a little handbook called the handbook for nonviolent communication, which was written by Marshall Rosenberg, founder of NVC.
So I got early, early connections with NVC before I knew about sociocracy.

The things that were most key for me is this, this notion from nonviolent communication, that no one ever does anything wrong.

And I was raised Catholic to believe that there were sins all over the place and you’d be burned in hell if you committed all these things. So this notion that no one does anything wrong, and even those awful people who do those awful things. So what does that you know, what does that mean? And so having that other sentence from nonviolent communication, it says, everything we do we do to meet needs.

And then that just shifted my brain from blaming people who do things I don’t like to becoming curious, what is it? You know, why do they do this thing? You know, what needs of theirs? Are they trying to meet with this behavior that maybe I don’t like? And so that was a huge that shift from blaming to curiosity, and then that translates into sociocracy because when somebody objects to a proposal that I think is brilliant, you know, like, oh, what needs of theirs are not being met by this proposal? I want to be curious about that. So rather than seeing someone who objects as a problem, hopefully I’m being able to see them as a gift. You know, that there’s some need that is not included in this proposal. So how can we improve this proposal so that more needs are more effectively met?

Another part is just as a facilitator, you know, if I’m running a meeting and something happens, a couple of people get into a little war with each other. You know, well, what do I want to do as a facilitator? I’ve got my NVC mindset and it’s like, okay, nobody’s doing anything wrong.

The first and most important thing is, do we even understand what we’re saying to each other, you know, is the message that person A is saying, being received by Person B. So as a facilitator, I might do something like, let me see if I’m understanding what you’re saying. And I’ll summarize what you’re saying and I might getting it right and I will maybe in my summary, make it more general to talk about needs, rather than only that the strategies that person’s mentioning. So putting it into a broader context that might then create a bridge to person B.

And the two, my two favorite lines I had as a facilitator, which come to me from NVC is, you know, let me see if I’m understanding what you’re saying? So message sent, message received, and the other is ‘tell me more’ because I want to draw out more of what they have to say. So that we all wind up having a shared understanding, and also particularly for me that before I tell somebody, you’re wrong. I want to really understand what they’re saying because most likely then it won’t be a shift from my ‘you’re wrong’ frame to Okay, I think I hear what you’re saying. And now with clarity about everybody’s needs on the table, then we can have creativity about what proposals might move things along.

I think the only other thing I would say is it’s interesting, my history with nonviolent communication, and with sociocracy.
I tried to bring sociocracy to the NVC world, and we almost got there but then the board of directors said no, and it was really heartbreaking.

But now I’m hopeful again, because Ted Rau is on the board of directors of the Center for NVC. There is more energy there.

And, and the piece that was important to me is that sociocracy without nonviolent communication can be cold. It’s just do what we do. And we forget we can meet, forget that we’re human, but it’s very oriented, getting things done. And I love that. What nonviolent communication was challenged by is focused on everybody’s feelings, feelings, feelings, feelings, feelings, feelings, and maybe not getting anything done. So it would drive me crazy sometimes to be in an organization that was based on NVC, where all everybody would do is ‘I’m triggered by what you just said’, ‘Well, I’m triggered by you’re being triggered by what I just said’. And it would just be that and so bringing the two together is what feels like it’s really powerful. So that’s my piece. Thank you.

Yes, thank you. Jerry and thank you all. one of the things that I wrote for myself, that it sort of brings to sociocracy another level, for me anyway, just by hearing you that it’s not just that we are hearing all voices, but we also trying to hear all the different needs.

And that to me brings, I don’t know, it brings a different depth to voices because it goes into really understanding the needs.
So that really touched me, also in what you just said and if I look at all three of you and what you’ve shared it feels to me that the NVC brings the possibility to regenerate safety.

In sociocracy we have a lot of models of work, but where is the part that as human beings we learn again, how to feel safe, what it means to feel safe, and how to regenerate that safety? So that was really interesting for me and so, some of the questions that came up between Romana and myself ; you all spoke about that place where the worldview between NVC and sociocracy sort of, they share something. So I wonder if you’d speak a little bit more about that, What is it? What is that worldview that you’re talking about? And also maybe how the strategy is different between sociocracy and NVC?
And, maybe we’ll, we’ll just do it a little bit by popcorn and I’ll sort of just facilitate so we can hear everybody. So whoever wants to start, just please go ahead and start and we’ll take it that way.

If my questions clear,

Nara
Yes I can start

Well, I think I started with the world view, which for me, is very clear. That is the regenerative paradigm, like what I heard from Audree, is that she also thinks that they’re both technologies that share a common purpose. So for me, this is the ‘why’ you know, the way we use any of these tools, so it doesn’t matter which tool that I’m integrating, like the ‘why’ is always the same, it doesn’t change. So creating more regenerative organizations to create a more regenerative world. So for me, this is the ‘why’ and the worldview that anything is inserted in that I work with. And then, like, what also resonates with what Jerry’s was saying, you know, and how they’re complementary to each other. You know, that sense that we’re taking care of this human aspect, but if we only allow this to emerge in an organization, it’s going to be really difficult for people to get things done. And when I work with organizations, it’s usually like thereception at first is usually like that, that sociocracy is going to be so rigid and that you know, like all the steps to follow and something mechanical and they need to learn how to dance. And I think you know, like combining both of them is also about creating this ability of people to know how to dance with that and, like, what I heard from Jerry was sharing a lot about his facilitation skills. And what I’m trying to do with my clients is usually helping them build facilitation skills, because this is what I believe that as an organization for an organization to be more regenerative, the skills need to be within the organization. So that’s why like when I am training when I’m evolving capacity within the organization the NVC needs to be there to support facilitators, it’s not just about knowing how is the selection process First, do this and then second to that and anybody name and that, you know, the round is important to know the steps, but if they don’t build the skills to facilitate, then they’re not going to be able to really implement this all together. So they’re very, very complementary as strategies and of how the organization can be more autonomous in a greater sense and to operate in this balance, you know, of listening to the needs and also you know, consenting to a proposal. So, in a way, you know, what I see is not like the differences, but the complementarity of these two worldview technologies. I think there are strategies that are serving the same purpose. And in that sense, they are not for me as a consultant to bring in my luggage only in my backpack only, but also to support the members of the organization to have them and to build them to evolve them to develop themselves so that the organization can work more smoothly. You know, like Audree was saying, I love when the organization and I just wanted to practice as sociocracy with people that know NBC, and it’s a little bit like that, that I’m trying to create an environment where people are more self aware and able to communicate and are able to use the artifacts of sociocracy in a way to to make decisions. You know, I don’t know if it’s, if I was clear, but I think this is where I would go. Yeah, totally. I mean, it.

It feels like No, both NVC and both sociocracy are working towards culture change. And so they’re both feeding into the same thing and it feels like NVC could be more of the feminine side, whereas sociocracy is maybe more of the masculine side and sort of a learner of dance together. This is in my terms anyway. So yeah, it’s to me, it’s very clear. Audrey, would you like to say more, please?

Audree
First, I want to bounce on what you just said about NVC being the masculine aspect. Because when we compare it with Focusing, which was founded by another, like another student of Carl Rogers, just like Marshall Rosenberg, if we say that Focusing is the feminine part and NVC is the masculine part, so I guess it’s kind of and I super agree with what Nara shared about how the they’re both part of the regenerative culture. And one way that I see the paradigm shift is from competition to collaboration. They’re both so much about let’s collaborate together and we believe that something magical will make it possible to have all of our needs met. It’s I like to call it magical, but it’s like something that emerges when we listen to each other, that when we get that deep understanding, something gets really clear about what we should do together. And so I think they allow us to get to that higher potential of humans, when we’re together as when we’re just separate and trying to, oh, no, my idea is better than your idea. And what I want to do is more important than what you want to do. So that’s that collaboration part of the regenerative culture is very much common to both and also in that regenerative idea, I can see how both have the potential to be healing for humans, because it’s so like, I’ve had a really normal life without big big events. And I feel all those traumas inside myself about like, oh, there’s a part of me that says that it’s not okay to exist. There’s a part of me that says, I can’t give my opinion right now because it’s wrong. And I cannot say that I removed myself from a project because it’s not right. So I have all these beliefs. I can see how, when we’re working in rounds and sociocracy and hearing each other and how when we’re listening to each other in NVC, it has all this potential for healing.

So through being heard, and being whole, as well, like being a whole person with our feelings that we can bring in sociocracy in the check in and check out and potentially in decision making and bringing all of what we are is part of it.

Idit
Thank you, Jerry.

Yeah, I was. I was thinking that, you know, what pains me most is the world that we live in of extreme inequality.

And so just the little things of so what’s the most elemental tool and sociocracy is the round. We go around and we hear from each person and by that we are saying that each one of these voices is on an equal basis with each other, all voices matter and in nonviolent communication, we talk about your needs and my needs, and they both matter. So regardless of whether the person that I’m talking to is whether they’re that police person and not the robber, or I’m the parent and you’re the child, or you’re the judge, and I’m you know, like the regardless of the roles in society that we have, that may be a sign power over from one to the other, that we are just human beings, your needs matter. My needs matter, we meet as equals on that level. And so just those little little things from each of those two places, just that’s what that’s what speaks to me about countering the story of inequality and how we are embodying equality with these two technologies.

Beautiful. Thank you. Ramana. Do you want to ask a question?
Yeah, because I was just listening to Jerry.
And I was just thinking about like, what, maybe you could say to us Jerry what is needed for organization of individuals, to kind of learn this amount of literacy, you need to be able to be effective with an organization working with other people, because you share a little bit about what you think what your experiences are?

If I understand the question, is what organizations need to be able to adopt or bring in sociocracy and NVC?

Well, with sociocracy really, I think the first question is, do we have a shared aim? That’s, that’s the most elemental thing and sociocracy does a group of people coming together has to have a shared aim? If they don’t, we’re just going to spend so much of their time arguing. So that’s the most elemental.

And B, so let’s see what is there besides that is an orientation towards cooperation. So it’s not a surprise in a sense that, where sociocracy has found homes is in cohousing and cooperatives.

You know, places where people are already coming because they want to live in a world you know, the more beautiful world we know it’s possible. They want to be escaping from all the power over dynamics of majority rule or consensus, which turns out to be really power dynamics among the people who speak the most. So you have to in a sense, I don’t know at some level you’re driven by pain and wanting something that works better.
Hopefully, younger generations are not as much driven by pain but driven more by inspiration and the possibilities because they’ve experienced more than some of us who are older.

It’s interesting the dynamic between sociocracy and MVC. When I teach sociocracy, often the hardest part is the feedback part.
Because in traditional organizations, they’re terrified of feedback. What does feedback mean? Feedback means you’re going to tell me how terrible I am and why I’m not going to get a raise or why I’m gonna get fired.
Whereas feedback in nonviolent communication is, you know, this is what’s going on to me and what’s going on for you and how can I contribute? Then how can you contribute to me? Its NVC is very feedback rich.
So that’s part of my bringing NVC into sociocracy, helps the organization adopt both.

And, and conversely, when there’s organizations that are mostly based in NVC, then I want to bring okay and what are we going to do? Let’s, put these, let’s not just talk about feelings and needs, but shift into thinking about what actual practical requests we’re going to make with each other. Because the request in NVC is the same thing as a proposal in sociocracy. What do we want to do that might contribute more effectively to getting our needs met?
I’ll stop there getting Nara or somebody else has more to say here. Yes. Of course. You know.

Nara
It’s funny to me to hear you because, you know, I have been working a lot with for profit organizations and that they don’t always have this shared aim in that bigger sense. You know, they have been hired, you know, to do a job and sometimes they don’t have that same feeling of when you’re, you know, like working on a cohousing or you know, like creating an eco village or something that you know, that you want to. So it’s interesting to know that the prerequisites kind of change when we are talking to an organization that is aiming for profit, right? And I feel that then the prerequisite is to have good sponsors, you know, that you have to have at least somebody that holds the power to be able to let go of their power, right. So the CEO of the organization, President and the owner, the person that usually is the boss in a hierarchical structure, this person needs to be able to say, Oh, I let go of this because I feel like this is going to be better for the whole, that we do this and the people that are subordinate, that they are usually just taking orders and do their job, they need to step up and really want to own more responsibility. And then this is where it’s challenging, because I’ve heard like several times, like people say, Oh, it’s just so much easier if I just do my job, you know, I don’t want to participate in management, you know, and this is, this is why I do so many workshops and, and create spaces for people to be able to ventilate all this inner tensions that are coming from a change in structure. So usually, like what I do is I changed the structure and they’re just being asked to implement a change in the structure. But this is creating a lot of effects in everybody, you know, like, feelings and needs. And so, you know, like, the other framework that I use, is that I separate in three, not in two, so governance, operations, and also relational rituals. So that there are instances that are meetings that are first to make decisions and that we’re using consent decision making. There are meetings that are just like synchronizing activities, everybody knows their roles, and we’re just processing tensions and creating responses to that. And there are rituals that are a completely different mood and vibe and feeling and facilitation for that people to feel safe and to share their vulnerability. And like what I heard from Audrey, you know, just to be whole, you know, the sense of integrality that we are not, you know, like a mask that is a professional mask and a personal mask, but I am a whole person and I have like all these different, you know, things going on in my life and I need a space just to be able to share that. And this is for me a different type of ritual that needs to be part of the system. And organizations are more and more understanding that it’s also their responsibility to create this space, especially after the pandemic that people are working in home offices, and they don’t have the coffee break anymore or the lunchtime to ask for, you know, somebody to listen to me, please. You know, so we need to create the spaces for people to really like formally have the time to share, you know, what’s going on with them on a personal level. So I think that in terms of the context, you know, the context of the organizations, these requirements are going to change and nonetheless, like the common thing is that we’re going to need to look at this and take care of all these different aspects and depending on the organization, one of these aspects is going to be hurting more. And then, you know, this is the acupuncture point that we need to start with, right so I guess my answer to your question Ramana is would be like it depends. It depends on the context.

Audree do you have anything to add?

Audree
Not something very revolutionary, but the first thing that came to mind with the question of what organizations need to bring in sociocracy, and NVC is training and practice and coaching, not very surprising, but worth mentioning. You don’t, I think people underestimate the importance of coaching and practicing for those kinds of things. It’s really like a deep change and sometimes we think we understand in theory for NVC, for example, but like when you tried to apply it it’s like it’s not working the way I had it in my mind.
Practicing coaching.

Jerry
Yeah, something that’s not a set kind of just an example. I think, in cohousing communities they often talk to, especially if they have not adapted sociocracy they tend to have large, the whole group, the whole community has meetings to make decisions. And in that context, then they end up arguing and not spending much time having the kind of relational community building rituals that narrow was talking about. And so when we can adopt sociocracy, in these cohousing communities, and they moved the decision making out of the full circle and into the smaller circles where the dialogue can really happen for decision making. That leaves open the whole community meetings for exactly what Nara was talking about. That relational community building aspect of things. So that was just a little example of how sociocracy impacts cohousing community, precisely on the point that Nara was talking about the importance of the relational aspects. Check.

Beautiful, thank you. Yeah, let’s see the time. Okay. Well, we sort of switched to see if there’s any questions that are coming from our audience, either by raising your hand or by writing into the chat.

Okay, question from Kate.

You muted Kate.

Kate
I’m sorry. Thank you. This is amazing, and I really appreciate your time. I guess the question would be on training. How, what is the best way to approach training if there may be resistance in the community or?
Yeah, I guess that would be it, how do you approach it in a way that allows people to slowly come along?

Yes, thank you. Jerry, do you want to start?

Jerry
Sure. I have, perhaps, kind of a simple answer to that. Which is, I think I want to think like a community organizer, which means to me, I want to first find out who my closest allies are, and support them in becoming leaders, supporters to become leaders.

Then find neutral people and help move them to become supporters, and then find the opposers and see if we can help move them to be neutral. So rather than trying to teach everybody all at once everybody should do this, which often brings up resistance is go to the people who are most supportive and get them really excited, because then they will have friends or other colleagues in the organizations will go oh, this if you want to do that, you know, I want to have what you’re having, you know, they get to they get excited. And so that to spread the excitement, rather than to try to push you know, like a power over. How do we create a shared power system? by imposing it by power over it gets complicated.

Perfect, thank you.

Audree, Nara, would you like to add anything?

Nara
Yeah, I love that. I feel like I heard that and I say, oh, yeah, I think maybe that’s what I do. Also, I never thought I was doing that. But yes, I also we usually have, like a circle that is like a seed circle and that they become kind of multipliers inside the organization.

And like the other thing that I would complement that is training, like learning is not happening only in training. That’s what I’ve learned in the past years, practicing this, that their learning needs to be part of the culture. And that sometimes, you know, I’ve tried, like saying, Okay, so I’m going to train everybody before and then we’re going to implement and then you know, like, a few months later people are not, you know, they don’t know yet, like the basics. Like today I was in a mission circle meeting and I realized that a lot of people didn’t understand double links yet, you know, and I said, Oh my God, you’ve been trained and and it’s not like uncommon to see that people have different times to understand, you know, like sometimes they think they understood but then like, a few months in practicing that they know, they understand that they didn’t understand. So this needs to be like throughout like every day in creating strategies that they’re learning can happen within the circle. So what I sometimes do is that I coach circles and I coach facilitators, I coach secretaries and you know, like delegates and what do you call it? operational leaders. So the main essential roles are coached on an individual or collective basis, but they need to understand better how to perform because they are also multipliers, right? If a facilitator understands the process and conduct a meeting in that process, then the others are going to kind of fall nicely and start appreciating have time to speak up, you know, like in a meeting and they don’t need to totally understand the concept and once they feel the need to understand that there is a way for them to understand. So coaching is one of the strategies that I use. And another thing that a client asked me to do. I don’t know if this is totally working, but what they asked me to do is to record a training in pills, so I have, like, the videos, I spent like a whole day recording like up to 10 minutes of videos. And what they’re doing is that they’re watching one video and then they have like a round of questions in the circles. So while the circles are having like pills of learning throughout and so this is kind of spreading. So this is just a few examples of how to think about a learning culture and not training.

Thank you, I actually have to go to another SoFA class on deep facilitation, thank you so much. I really appreciate all your time and input. Thank you Kate.

So if we had a question in the chat
Very concrete if there are any books or materials I would recommend on NVZ.

This would be a good time to just talk about all the various offerings that sociocracy for all or any of us who are presenting here have just before other folks leave that you know what the resources are.

Yes. I can post them.

Yes, there was another question. Sarah would like to hear an example of the combination of the connections made between NVC and sociocracy. For instance, how the introduction of NVC in a community practicing sociocracy helped them?
So anybody who might give a practical example?

Nara
I could but I’m just thinking that I’m talking a lot, so maybe Audree would like to go first.

Audree
I can give a quick example. It was still with our global eco village, little circle, that we were practicing sociocracy for maybe a couple of months and a lot of tensions came up and we decided to do something like just a listening circle. And I tried to facilitate it with my NVC skills. And basically what we did in that circle was just reflective listening all the time. Every time someone said something. I asked one or two other person, can you say what you heard? And then the other person said, Yes, that’s it or no, and they felt a little bit more grounded and really allowed us to learn things about especially one person that was starting to have lots of tensions.
So just the power of listening outside of the decision making so it’s kind of an example of the relational. I forget the word but the relational moment I call it the ‘heart to heart’ meetings, for communities like to see them the power of just thinking relational time with NVC skills.

Jerry
One other little example would be sometimes in a cohousing community, when we’re dealing with difficult issues is to separate the meetings and I think this is basically maybe the same thing that Andre just said.

We are, for example, considering changing the name of our community. Well, there’s a lot of attachment to the current name, as well as desire for a different name. If we have a meeting where we’re trying to make a decision, everybody’s tensions will be high. So first, we could have a meeting where we just talked about what the name, what the current name means to us and what the notions of a change of name would mean to us. So a space where we’re not challenged by the tension of trying to make a decision. So we can just explore and express ourselves and then having done that, then we’re in a better place to, to approach a decision making meeting where Okay, we’re gonna have to make a decision and not everybody will completely be thrilled with whatever new name we come up with. So that kind of separation.

The other thing that I simply think of is, you know, if I’m still kind of upset, if I’m still angry at somebody at the end of the meeting, then it’s like, ‘hey, you know, Aimy, are you willing to go for a walk with me’?.
And let’s, let’s listen to each other and see if we can repair our relationship. So that’s simple things like that.

Nara
Right. Well, I can give like several examples, and they go in along the same lines of these examples. So for instance, last week, I had this client that is not for profit, this one, but they are an organization that was moving from a kind of an hierarchical structure to this self management structure. They are creating circles and one of the circles that they have created are the people and culture circles, right? So there’s somebody that used to take care that became the operational leader and now has a team to create these things and to care for people and culture. And it’s interesting because this is something that I feel is really super important and would create a lot of relaxation in the system. But on the contrary, it created a lot of tension. And then you know, decisions were being hard to go and then I was like, What is going on, what is here that is not being said? there is something that is tense about, and they have like, for relational. They have biannually they have, like personal meetings. They and I have emotion coming up. So, you know, maybe there’s like the tensions are piling up, because it’s been a while that they don’t see each other or something. But then I decided to say Okay, the next meeting the next general circle meeting, I’m going to propose it gonna be a relational mode, and then we did it and it was just like, this pressure cooker was just, you know, like exploding and, and people were really vulnerable and saying like, what was going on about the creation of these people and culture circles. And it was really, really, really beautiful to see how people felt at the end of the meeting. So less overwhelmed, you know, they were kind of feeling relieved and also a bit tender. But then you know, like now that everything that the elephant is in the room that people have heard, you know, what, what is really getting each other, then now we can move on to the decisions so now that , they really could hear each other and there were words that were said in considerations that were like triggering people, things like that, you know, like really small things and big things. And then now everything can go to a kind of a governance meeting and then change the way that the instances are created responsibilities. So I think this is a nice example of how they kind of interweave together. It’s not, it’s both and right. It’s not something that you do, like in every meeting, but sometimes you need to kind of integrate that to be able to take care of a decision that has a really huge impact. In the whole organization. So I could go on and give other examples, but I think this is very significant because it happened only last week.

Idit
Thank you. That’s wonderful. I think we’re going to transition and we’re gonna go into triads, into small groups. Just to take some minutes. It’s not gonna be very long. It’s about seven minutes. to just share what you heard, what touched you, what questions where you are, what you heard, just to digest and to let the words land in the subject land a bit, and then we’ll come back to the room and gather any insight or information and then we’ll bring it to closure. So if we are ready. Romana.

Breakout Rooms

Roman
So, Idit , will you help us to the last reflections together?

Idit
Yeah. So we just love to hear if anyone has anything that you’d like to share? what you learn? Any insight, maybe new questions or old questions that you want to ask, just to really pick up on some of the wisdom that we all already have innate in us so.

Jerry
Yeah, by just raising your hand, when we talk about sociocracy the third element of sociocracy is feedback. This is the moment, this is the moment will give us feedback of what has been said that was meaningful to you or that you know, sparked some question or some answer for you.

And here we got Alma.

Alma
Okay, well, something that is very interesting to me about nonviolent communication is that let me see I have it here in my notes.
Oh, I’m sorry, I don’t I don’t find it. Oh, here. Somebody said about nonviolent communication that it has a possibility of regenerating safety and what it means to be safe and how we make people feel safe? And I think that’s something that’s very important to learn. What to do right now. Because, like, particularly here in Mexico, I mean, I’m talking in my context, there is a lot of activism that is being done just to be like, very politically correct. Like and there is a lot of projects that are like safe space, we are with the queer community and allies and stuff like that. And then when things happen it’s like they really don’t do not like to respond as allies and it’s like, there’s not this real integrity going on. Right. So it seems to me like there is a lot of projects and spaces that are using this safe space, blah, blah, blah, fly, but don’t actually know how to create this spaces and how to take into consideration like all the points of views and feelings of people and that kind of, that’s something that happens here. A lot like a lot even with very experienced people, people that have so many years in activism and beautiful work and everything is fine, but there’s this thing that I don’t feel these spaces are honestly safe. So I feel like we have a lot of things to understand about human feelings and creating this atmosphere that I think that’s very important. So that’s what I take out of this and I’m interested in learning more because I want to have solutions and not only like frustrations and things to say.

Jerry
Safe Space is a place where we can have our greatest fights with each other and still always know that we still care about each other because otherwise safe space is really impact avoidance rather than engagement.

Ema
Yeah, there were two things that I’m taking away from today that I really appreciated. One of them was the one Jerry mentioned about an orientation to cooperation and predominately, I’m interested in the nexus of NVC and sociocracy. Though on behalf of my faith community, I am a Unitarian and I think you would assume that cooperation would be the orientation of a group of people that are all in the same faith and I actually don’t know that that’s true. And so that was kind of an aha moment for me. I’m thinking, right, okay. Yeah, that’s, we need to take a step back and just check what’s actually true.

And then the other piece that I’m really appreciating taking away is this idea of relational meetings. And again, you would think in a faith community that that would kind of happen spontaneously, but I don’t know, we do not have the structured relational meetings where we’re doing that reflective listening piece, which is so vital when you’re moving into a big change and we have just gone through a big change is a Faith community here in Canada. And it would have been amazing to have had that piece happen first. So those are the two really key pieces that I’ve taken away from today.

Yeah, I just want to say that. I think there is something like a video recorded from a workshop that Tanya and I gave on ‘relational mode’. Do you remember Jerry? I don’t know. I think it was two years ago. And I think I don’t know if it was in the conference, but it was or if it was a webinar, but if I remember that we wrote a piece to explain to people what we were doing and calling relational mode and then if anybody wants to kind of find that it’s somewhere in the SoFA, extensive collection of videos.

Jerry
What I wanted to add here was, you know, we’re in Sociocracy for All, we have the sector circles; sociocracy and permaculture, sociocracy in schools….We’re hoping someday we’re going to have Sociocracy and Unitarians, because there is, we are getting you know, we have a number of contacts in the Unitarian world and that’s pretty close. And one of the things that I want to say is that sometimes the structures don’t support cooperation.

And Unitarians, like many other religious congregations, have two sources of power. There’s the minister, and then there are the lay leaders to the congregation. And because they’re set up as two sources of power, they fight, they compete.
But what sociocracy will do, is bring them into one Unitary frame where then they are asked to cooperate rather than have two sources of power.
It is the same with universities where you have the professors on one hand and the administration on the other hand and they are not set up to cooparte so the structure is actually getting in the way of the possibility of operations.

Emma
An insight that I have, in a way being within an organization, a housing co-op that uses a modified form of sociocracy, and there is a way that all of the structure of it had taken me away a little bit from remembering the importance of being in a personal relationship. Sort of on an unconscious level, it is not something I have not been paying attention to, but I was saying in my triad, there is permission to operate like a community organizer to realize that of course not everybody is equally excited about things. And that, like it is ok, to sort of campaign, one on one, it unearth something in me, but is that ok, what about the group consensus, of course it happens anyway in our one on one relationships, but it uncovered some kind of tension there that I did not realize was there, around, like, what’s happening in the individual relationship which of course goes a long way in terms of creating a culture and how this interface with having the group consensus or group consent on changes. Something I am wrestling with.

Jerry
I always have something to say about everything. One of the things that I appreciate, the way I explain sociocracy sometimes is ‘ both and, the individual and the group. So that is the challenge and the magic, so it is not just about groups. Sometimes we say, we can only do things according to the rules of sociocracy, we have to be in a meeting somehow. . No. You are still an individual, you still get to speak to your neighbor, you still get to talk to somebody who is on another circle and say what you think, it is ok. If you have a good idea and it spreads, turific!, and you are a neighbor, maybe we can talk some time.

Shella
I’m not sure it’s a question. Maybe there’s a question in it, but it’s what I’m hearing.

I was curious coming into this topic about how people integrate it. And what I’m hearing is that there’s two, two different things going on. One is to have, I like this idea of having a separate relational meeting that I think it was Nara who said it.
So that’s one way when things are going on in a Sociocratic circle policy meeting, that you realize there’s more going on and when you can have a separate meeting for the relational aspects. But, it also affects how, what the facilitator does can also affect what the facilitator does in a meeting, whether NVC or any other relational tool in terms of the skills of the facilitator and for that matter, the skills of all the people in the meeting. So I’m hearing two different answers to my questions of where they fit together.

Audree
Yeah, I like what you’re stressing out of not just the skills of the facilitator, but everybody in the group because the more the group can self manage, the less pressure there isn’t just one person. And I’ve experienced sometimes groups where people are not used to work in rounds and to introspect, and it’s like it can just get chaotic. It cannot, every time someone speaks, bring back to the topic and then ask for a relation from someone else. So yeah, I like that. You’ve talked about the skills of everybody in the circle.

Nara
I can also add to that, that is like when I trained facilitators, you know, what I give them is kind of a way for them to be able to choose what to do at each given moment. There are moments that they need to stop the meeting right there and go into a relational mode, because there is no way that this group can continue, you know, and move through the decision. And unless they talk about it, it’s just so big that it needs to be taken care of right there. There are moments that it’s like a person or a conflict going on and that can be listened to, I can understand it and it can use like the paraphrasing and the NVC skills, to listen deeply to what is there. But then I can ask if the person is okay with taking this to after the meeting. And then this can be just a conversation like an empathic listening or it can be a mediation. So then it would mean creating roles that are our mediators that are ready to take care of these like just outside of the meeting. And sometimes it’s like the example I gave, it’s like the whole ritual that can need to be created to be able to cater for the emergence of something relational, that is not in the ordinary kind of calendar of meetings of this organization. And then on the more kind of structural cultural level is creating all this rituals that are required. So either if it’s roles, if it is a ritual calendar, like three times a year we’re going to meet and we’re going to just, you know, integrate and talk about relations or something like that, and also create a system to respond to conflict. So for instance, restorative circles is something that I have been implementing in another client, because they need to have the capacity to mediate conflict within it’s not just like call me as a consultant every time there is something happening you know, so so they need to build capacity also, not only in facilitation, but also in mediation inside their group so that when something is happening, then you know, they know like each person in the in the system knows how to contact who to contact and how to create a ritual that will take care of the conflict. So it’s like there are different levels of actions that you can use or patterns that you can use to implement this. And I think this is what we talked about in that workshop, I think, but we can talk more about Sheila afterwards, and then I can give you some references.

Idit
Well, thank you, Nara. Thank you, Jerry. Thank you, Audrée. Thank you, everybody for joining us. and being with us.