How can an established community transition from consensus decision-making to dynamic governance/sociocracy? What are the potential benefits? What are the potential challenges?

Many communities, including cohousing communities worldwide, are using Dynamic Governance (DG, or ‘sociocracy’) to self-manage, enjoying its clarity and ease.

A brief introduction to Sociocracy followed by a description of how Sociocracy has contributed to loving community at Kawartha Commons Cohousing. This talk uses various components of Sociocracy, including rounds, check-ins, check-outs, and objections, as examples illustrating both the process of creating a loving community and loving to live in community.

Ted describes three strategies to keep meetings short:
– small group mandate
– creating clarity around process
– consent decision making

Learn how to facilitate rounds, when to use them, and how to make the most of them.

Breaking bread together is an ancient way to promote community. What are the ethical considerations when shared community values give way to diverse personal values? Participants model a sociocratic process to demonstrate a way to discuss these potentially contentious issues.

Creating a cohousing community? What about a dynamic and effective system of decision making which is also a form of self governance that allows everyone’s voice to be heard and creates solutions that are within everyone’s preference or at least range of tolerance. Sociocracy in action from a forming community.

Are you using sociocracy (Dynamic Governance) in your community? Interested in adding on a few helpful tweaks? In this session, we will add backlog logistics, agenda templates, continuing education ideas, tweaked selection processes, operational roles, review processes and large group feedback – you might use some but probably not all of them yet! This course is better for people with experience – but also less experienced folks will be able to use these tweaks, even beyond sociocratic groups.

The beginning is the most important part of the work.” The decision-making system you use in your forming group will set your culture for years or decades to come. Set it up with clarity, intentionality and flexibility in the beginning, and you will thank yourselves later! Dynamic Governance (aka sociocracy) is ready to grow as you grow.

In many forming groups, it’s the founder(s) or a small core group that makes many decisions and does most of the work – often burning out people. But it doesn’t have to be that way! Roles and clearly empowered circles are a way to provide clarity and to spread authority so all voices can be heard.