4. Organization and Making Decisions

Fred Lanphear

Orchestrating our life together requires structure and intentionality. This has evolved mostly from the way we organized ourselves during development. We then adapted our structure to meet the requirements of our bylaws. Our overall legal structure is that of a condominium association with every member on the board of directors. This means that all of us are involved in the decisions that affect the life of the community. This may seem overly cumbersome but we have found ways to make many decisions relatively quickly and painlessly. In this way everyone in the community to takes full ownership and responsibility for the community.

We developed a steering committee during the development phase called the Navigators. This structure continues to be the group that keeps in touch with the pulse of the community and orchestrates the monthly House Meetings and facilitates Sharing Circles. The House Meeting is designed to help us monitor and improve the practices of how we live together. The Sharing Circles provide us with the opportunity of sharing from the heart around topics of broad community interest. Members are encouraged to take their turn as a Navigator. When someone volunteers to be a “Navigator”, it is for a three-year term.

This results in a new mix of Navigators each year – some who have already served a year or two and some who are just beginning their terms. Usually, new folks join at the annual meeting in January to replace those who are retiring. The officers of the board are elected from among the Navigators.

Other committees that take responsibility for different aspects of community life are the following:

• Fabulous Food Folks – develop policy, plan coordinate logistics for our food program.
• Biogaians – plan and coordinate care of the community gardens and landscape.
• Celebrants – plan, coordinate and find facilitators to orchestrate celebrations.
• Community Works – develops and oversees model for cleaning common facilities.
• Community Relations – encourages interaction with the neighborhood.
• Facilities – responsible for maintenance and development of physical facilities.
• Finances – responsible for bookkeeping, invoicing, taxes, payments and budget.

Each of these committees has both the responsibility and authority to operate with considerable freedom in carrying out their tasks. Most committees have budgets they manage without oversight.

There are no spiritual leaders, managers, or titular leaders at Songaia. We practice collective leadership, in which different folks take charge of particular tasks or projects. The leadership is generally associated with the person who is most passionate about the work taking on the leadership in that arena of activity.

Many horror stories are attributed to decision-making in community. Decisions can be difficult when done by consensus. However, we have learned to make most decisions without a lot of hassle or delay. The Decision Board has been an extremely helpful tool in making most of our decisions. This requires that an individual or committee prepare a proposal and post it on the Decision Board in the Common House. At the time of posting, the poster also send out an e-mail informing everyone that it has been posted. Along with the proposal, a consent sheet is posted for members to initial their consent, ask questions, or indicate the need for discussion. If discussion is needed, a meeting(s) can be arranged after a community meal where concerns can usually be addressed.

We discovered during the development process that making decisions by consensus in an open meeting was generally a formula for extended discussion that could lead to frustration and often, no resolution. Until a group decides to work at consensus and moves through the propensity to talk every decision into the ground, the process can be challenging. This is related to one expression of diversity in a community. If you were to describe how the members of the community align themselves with ease of making decisions, you would find on the one extreme, those who are very loose about how specific decisions are made and on the other extreme those who are very specific, or require copious details, as well as a variety of perspectives in-between. “Word-smithing”, or the art of choosing just the “right words”, often becomes a barrier to forming consensus. It is another reason the written proposals seem to flow more smoothly. If folks are blocked by choice of words, they can offer new wording to the person presenting the proposal and it can be changed.

Being able to come to consensus is not just about learning how to make agreements. It is about building trusting and supportive relationships. The foundational work of decision-making in community is in effective House Meetings and Sharing Circles, as well as all the other community activities that build intimacy and trust, in addition to forgiveness.

House Meetings are designed to celebrate our accomplishments, identify where we need improvement, and help forge a common mind around topics of mutual interest and concern. We seldom make decisions in house meetings although we will often identify areas where change or new decisions are needed. House Meetings open with singing, a roll call of each Unit and some form of check-in, either in a round robin fashion or in dyads, triads, or larger sized group. “Rants and Raves” are a major focus of each House Meeting. Rants, issues or concerns, and Raves, affirmations and accomplishments, are our monthly accountability and celebration of life together. The rants, or issues, are not discussed during the meeting except to say who will take responsibility for its resolution.

The House Meetings will generally focus on one or two topics usually in the form of a report or workshop. House Meetings are often a time to gather input on a proposal that the Navigators or some other committee will be submitting on the Decision Board. This encourages broader participation in creating proposals while enticing others to follow-through with the proposal. The meetings close with announcements and circling with a closing song.

A technique called Open Space was recently introduced into our house meetings for discerning topics of emerging interest. This approach has been helpful in giving impetus and form to new initiatives. A recent Open Space workshop broke into 3 topics; one on community vehicles, one on lights in the living room, and another on engaging kids in setting up for dinners. A task force came out of the first and actual implementation of suggested activities resulted from the other 2 groups. This technique has the value of mobilizing and giving form to existing passion.

Sharing circles are also an important opportunity for listening to each other’s perspectives and becoming aware and respectful of the diversity in the community. The intent of the circles is to choose a topic that has some interest to almost everyone in the community and create a dialogue process that allows all to participate. In 2007 we focused on reviewing our seven values; taking one per circle and brainstorming where we were making progress achieving our values and where we need to do more work and what that looks like.

A recent circle visited the topic of recovering the spirit around community work projects. The discussion indicated there would be support for projects but not commitment from everyone to do the physical work to make them happen. Folks were becoming more selective of how they would allocate their energy to ongoing work in contrast to new projects. This was not a surprise since it reflected what was already taking place. It did allow us to accept the fact that everyone does not need to participate in every project. It was also a reminder that any new project needs to have a sufficient number of people who have the passion to make it happen.