Introduction
According to the 2024 Global Workplace Report by Gallup, in Italy 92% of working people feel disengaged and nearly half are experiencing stress because their needs are not being adequately met at work. As a result, many organizations are experimenting with new ways of working together, based on shared values, regenerative leadership, decentralized structures and distribution of decision-making power. The sociocracy It is an alternative and adaptable organizational model that can help us create more inclusive, participatory and sustainable work environments, promoting people's well-being and collective effectiveness.
Most public and private organizations are based on hierarchical structures and rigid processes, with command and control dynamics that have become anachronistic. Some organizations are therefore exploring alternatives such as flat assembly structures or the rejection of any formal structure. However, these approaches can hide unintended effects: the more we try to make an organization 'horizontal', the more we risk the emergence of implicit forms of authority tied to status and privilege. For example, in a meeting, white, mature, extroverted people who are socialized as men tend to speak more than people who are female or non-binary, introverted or young.
This brings us to some questions:
- How can we organize ourselves so that people can participate actively and collectively express a power, that is the ability to pursue a purpose and bring about effective change in society?
- How can we eradicate a culture of power over people (Power Over) to embrace one focused on the shared and collective power (Power With/To/Within)?
In building organizations that empower people to be their best selves, we can find some answers in approaches Teal and agile, and in organizational models such as the RenDanHeYi and sociocracy. In this article, we will explore sociocracy in detail.
What is sociocracy?
Sociocracy (from Latin: partner, “associate” or “companion”, and from ancient Greek: kratos, “power”), that is, 'peer government', is an organizational system that helps us actively distribute power, ensuring a dynamic balance between: (1) equity and effectiveness, and (b) autonomy and collaboration.
An organization is sociocratic when it is:
- Oriented towards a goal.
- Decentralized in nested units.
- Self-governed through consent.
- Resilient thanks to feedback loops.
From here on we will tell you about the meaning, the mutual relationship and the implementation of each of these organizational design principles.
Goal-oriented
Every system has an implicit or explicit goal or function that determines its behavior (Meadows, 2019). An organization that adopts sociocracy as its organizational system has a purpose that he pursues through his actions. (NB: there would be a lot to say, and in Ecosystemics we do not have sufficient expertise, on how the purpose is expressed as purpose or mission, especially in relation to external communication for its users or customers; for now we limit ourselves to talking about purpose exclusively in the internal dimension of the organization.)
For many organizations, profit is and will remain the primary goal to pursue; others are focused on human well-being and the regeneration of ecosystems. In any case, it is important that the purpose is explicit, shared from the participants, and concretely reflect the organization's activities. In this way, the organization as a whole, and all the parts (departments or work groups) and people that compose it, can carry out their activities oriented (and dynamically reorienting themselves) towards a collective horizon. A common purpose contributes to the satisfaction of human needs for alignment, belonging and fulfillment.
Having a clear and shared purpose is not only useful for guiding the operational activities of its components, but is also the starting point for structuring by decentralizing responsibilities, and deciding, acting and responding to feedback with clarity and effectiveness in relation to the objectives.
Decentralization in nested units
To support the active participation of all its parts and participants, a sociocracy adopts a nested structure, that is, it is formed by units (usually called circles) according to a hierarchy of purpose: a unit with a broader purpose will contain within it sub-units with more specific purposes. In this way, each group or role will have the autonomy to act and decide while maintaining coherence and relationship with the other units.
In practice, a group of people working in the same field can generate a subgroup responsible for a part of the activities related to the broader purpose. This function can be repeated whenever it is considered useful to decentralize the power to act and decide.
To facilitate the coordination and information flows in the organization, the main units are anchored to a unit central often called 'general' or 'coordinating'. If units with more specific purposes act operationally autonomously, the function of units with broader purposes is to serve them and support their work, outside of a logic of subjugation and coercion. All this contributes to the needs of autonomy, effectiveness and mutuality.
Sociocratic organizations often establish an interconnection between two units close to each other in purpose through two roles: one is defined top down (so from the unit to its subunit) and the other bottom up (from the subunit to its superunit), called respectively 'guide' (or coordinator) and 'delegate' (or representative). These have the primary responsibility of bringing the perspectives and information from the units in which they have been defined, establishing a relationship of equals between them.
Here you can explore the circular organizational chart of Loyco, a Swiss company with a nested-unit structure; here the structure of an international association.
Self-government by consent
In sociocracy, each unit can manage its own work independently. This means that it can regulate, direct and restrict its operations by adopting guidelines, policies and strategies to effectively pursue its purpose. These decisions are made with the assent method.
Decisions are made through assent in the absence of objections motivated, that is, concerns that the effects of a certain decision may generate harm or an obstacle to the organization or one of its parts. This means that a decision is taken when it is good and safe enough to try for a period of time.
Unlike decision making for consent in which we ask "do we agree?", with the assent we ask the question “Are there any objections?”, resulting in practice in a faster and more effective method, while still remaining highly fair.
Generating a subunit, introducing roles, selecting or confirming people in leadership and delegation roles, and establishing unit membership are some of the decisions made by consensus in a sociocracy. In addition, each unit typically holds facilitated meetings in which participants report information, explore an issue together, and make decisions by consensus. This information is recorded so that, while maintaining autonomy among the parties, there is transparent sharing throughout the organization.
Resilience through feedback loops
Like any living system, a sociocratic organization is built to respond with flexibility or evolve and adapt to changes thanks to feedback loops. Sociocracy is full of them! For example, during meetings and gatherings, rounds of speaking are held to ensure fairness and effectiveness among participants and to quickly integrate their opinions or objections. In fact, assent follows a spiral of understanding, exploration and decision to reach a common agreement.
In general, all the instruments of sociocracy follow a pattern of orientation, preparation, action and evaluation, so that each decision-making or operational cycle can be improved based on the experiences and knowledge gained. For example:
- Decision-making by consent: to evolve the organization it is important that the decisions that regulate it follow a cycle of orientation identifying the need, preparation of a proposal, decision making and implementation, and evaluation of the effects and improvement.
- Performance review sociocratic: these are shared feedback sessions held regularly to support the learning path of an individual or team. These sessions involve the people who know the person/s work best and therefore those who can give feedback outside of a relationship between manager and employee.
- Closing round at the end of a meeting: In sociocracy, every meeting ends with a check out, that is, a round of conversation in which each participant can share feedback on the contents, processes and interpersonal dynamics that have emerged.
Finally, in sociocracy there are not only structured processes for sharing feedback: thanks to theactive listening and the empathic and nonviolent communication, moments of sharing interpersonal feedback are promoted based on the satisfied and unsatisfied needs that inevitably emerge when people work together.
Ecosystemic's approach to sociocracy
According to the Dutch entrepreneur Gerard Endenburg, passionate about cybernetics and the main promoter of sociocracy in the 20th century, this system is based on four principles: policy decisions by consensus, organization in circles, double connection, selections by consensus.
In Ecosystemic We practice sociocracy and accompany other organizations in adopting and practicing it; recently, within one of our rituals community, we read the book 'Thinking in Systems' by Donella Meadows, in which the author explains how every system has three characteristics: resilience, self-organization and hierarchy. We therefore wanted to reinterpret Endenburg's principles starting from our experiences and approaches, without distorting them but honoring the same regenerative and systemic approaches that led to the emergence of this model in parallel in various parts of the world.
The strong point of sociocracy is its adaptability. This organizational model can be applied to any type of organization, be it a company, an association, or a community, formed by a team of a few people or by thousands of workers, and regardless of the organizational model on which it was previously based.
