I need your help in thinking something through.
Let’s make it a little thought experiment. Let’s say, in your state, town or country, a mystery happens over night, and all organizations are sociocratic the next morning. Not only that, but people have been trained and everything works swimmingly.
What would happen next?
I’ll try to give a few answers, but really, I’m curious what you would predict. So here are three of my ideas:
- Learning power-within. I think people would heal their issues with power. There is so much power-over and power-under (overstepping power vs. not using the power we’ve been given to work proactively and constructively) that we’ve internalized. Practicing sociocracy means to work through that - which can take years. But eventually, in more and more moments, we learn to hold our power in a healthy way. In a way that neither gives power and agency away.
Working through this is not a matter of “learning.” It’s a transformational change that happens by experiencing, together, in real life - until the re-wriring in our brains happens. - Meeting needs. I think we’d see more needs addressed. With everyone having more governance literacy, we’d have an easier time organizing. The path from seeing a need to meeting that need would be shorter.
- Weaving of community. Meetings wouldn’t be separate from community building. In fact, meetings would be prime places for building of community. Through listening, learning and shared exploration, we’d form a more coherent common ground of lived experience, shared vision and mutual understanding.
What jumps out at you? What do you think this world would look like?