I first heard about sociocracy while looking for new ways of governance for a project for which I was responsible (when I was working at an environmental NGO). There were tools being implemented to guarantee co-creation, equity, and transparency, but no rational processes. But at that time we could not move forward to implement sociocracy.
What I particularly find fun in sociocracy are the people and the trust environment that is built. But I still struggle with the pace of the process, feeling like sometimes is still easier to speed up some steps (though I do understand that they are important to guarantee clear understanding and that everyone is on the same page).
I am interested in community forming and management and I discovered something related to Holacracy on Amazon. Starting to read the book I realised that in order to form a community using Holacracy, other people around me should learn Holacracy as well. I considered it too complicated so I continued my search on Google and I discovered something about Sociocracy, a word I didn’t know even existed. I then used Sociocracy as a keyword to search in Google and I discovered the site www.sociocracyforall.org then the 2 books: WDWD and MVOS. I bought the PDF format of the two books mentioned above and I discovered that sociocracy is simple to understand and easy to implement, so it became my first choice.
I had two choices in my mind: to get closer to "Sociocracy for All ‘’ or to “Sociocracy 3.0 (S3)”. I opted for SoFA because it is an organization where I could learn and practice at the same time. I had the membership interview with Andrew and finally became a SoFA supporting member. I also contacted Lea to discuss the possibility to form a Romanian circle adjacent to the SoFA International Circle (IntC). I started to learn as much and as soon as possible to become a working member and on Nov. 2022 I graduated the SoLT 20 and we also formed SoFA România. I am here because I like sociocracy and I am willing to spread sociocracy in Romania and worldwide. I’m glad to be in the company of such wonderful people like you. I don’t know everything but I’m techable. Also, I’m not perfect at all. Are you? Best regards to you all.
I really like the company of other people and I really enjoy conversations. I would like to create more opportunities for people to meet, to share opinions and to value themselves. I think there is much value in each of us that is waiting to be discovered. Let’s make our creative potential become the reality we are looking for. I appreciate all that has been already done. Thank you!
Tom Mead here. Member of Washington Commons, a construction phase cohousing community in West Sacramento, CA. Have been circling Sociocracy for awhile, ever since visiting what was then Pioneer Valley Cohousing over 5 years ago. Our community has formed a study group to investigate Sociocracy. We have been doing so and introducing the membership to overall concepts as well as some specific tools that can be used any time more that two of us get together to try to do something. So far we have all enjoyed the journey and hope see things seep into our behavior over time.
Very interested to see this Discourse forum pop up when I verified my account. We have just started using Gather, a cohousing platform, which has our community discourse forum as a feature. I am also highly amused that discourse does not recognize Sociocracy as a valid spelling.
Hi All:
Great questions to get to know each other!
How did you hear about sociocracy?
I was doing some research on intentional communities through ic.org and found the information. As my background involved leadership development, conflict resolution and effective communication it felt like a great fit. I have only recently found and joined Sociocracy For All and glad to be here with all of you.
What organizations do you belong to, and do they practice sociocracy?
I am a trustee with Life Force Canada (www.lifeforcecanda.ca) a membership association aimed at educating men & women how to bring their business or community into the private domain so they can create a free, peaceful & prosperous life. I develop and offer training and support on creating private member associations based on Natural Law. We are now offering Sovereign Community Association training to support communities ready to move into the private. A large part of this training is helping men and women in the community create a self-governance structure that supports all their voices being heard as they build their councils. Sociocracy is one model I believe, with education and practice, fits well in the parallel societies we are creating.
What aspects of sociocracy are particularly fun for you?
At present I enjoy learning how the circles are created, the interaction and continuity of communication between the circles while working in concert to achieve the vision and goals of the community. All of this is achieved with full participation by all its members.
I love hearing others experiences and sharing of their successes and challenges it is such an important aspect to learning.
What aspects of sociocracy do you struggle with?
As with all “new” concepts I find myself loving the theory but struggle at times getting others on board to commit to putting it into practice. In my role as a facilitator, it is difficult to present concepts, ideas, and motivate folks to change if I myself have not experienced it. It isn’t impossible yet it will lack depth of experience that is a key factor to helping others. In our LFC leadership team we practice this communication and decision making. It will be a challenge to expand this to include our forum leaders as they are all volunteers from across the country.
I appreciate all here for sharing their stories and wisdom.
Hey there! And welcome!
I’m not sure from reading here whether Life Force Canada uses sociocracy - it sounds like you’re exploring or in the middle of implementation?
I’d be super curious to see what would come out if you filled out this health check.
I heard about sociocracy from Adrian Zarif. Together we formed SoFA Rmânia in the SoFA International environment. We are now working together do develop a Romanian comunity for sociocracy and we spread sociocracy in our native language for all the Romanians, wherever they are. Many Romanians are outside Romania, living and working in Spain, Italy, France, Germany, UK, Belgium, Netherlands, or USA.
I joined SoFA (Sociocracy For All) last year and I am a working member, being the delegate of SoFA Romania.
My passion is Social Design and I like working with people. My personal aim is to use sociocracy in (re)shaping the social environment in my country and worldwide. I’m happy to by in the company of people that have a similar mindset and who are looking for ways for collaborative decision-making.
In my country most people didn’t hear about sociocracy and that’s why I joined Adrian to form SoFA Romania as a circle of SoFA. We want bring our contribution in spreading sociocracy in Romania and for all Romanians.
Thank you for giving me the opportunity to introduce myself.
I invite you all to visit the International - SoFA Romania section on this Discussion Forum. You can use the translation facility to find what we have to say about sociocracy.
Welcome, Juliana! I have neglected this section of the forum for a while and was delighted to discover that several amazing new members have posted their introductions, including you. I have not yet looked at the information you referenced in the International-SoFA Romania section, but I commend you for your vision and efforts. I too believe positive social design is the key to our collective better future, yet design systems like sociocracy are so new that advocates can struggle to engage a critical mass of folk who invest the time and energy to understand them. Can you share stories of emerging successes in your work in Romania? I am old enough to vividly remember the overthrowing and execution of Ceausescu–Romania was released from his repressive dictatorship only 33 years ago…I am curious to understand how does decentralized governance practice evolves in cultures deprived of basic freedoms for a long time.
Thank you Kath. How a pleasant feeling is to receive a welcome in this community. I’m glad you have seen me and gave me the opportunity to see you. Now we can keep in touch. Wonderful!
I agree that we all could have a better future as long as we learn together the meanings of “collective”. I feel sociocracy could sustain us in working together and sharing the benefits of making decisions together. I’m lucky that other people have already done significant work to spread sociocracy. I joined SoFA to learn and practice sociocracy. I’m looking forward to becoming a good sociocracy ambassador in my native language.
I guess that the “critical mass of folk who invest the time and energy to understand” sociocracy could increase by being more aware of our vision and mission to offer a “good enough for now and safe enough to try” alternative for organizations, to become more inclusive, participatory, sustainable and even regenerative over time.
I’m in the process of learning about sociocracy and discovering the sociocracy environment in Romania. There are organizations that use sociocracy elements (like check-in, talking in rounds, check-out) but it seems to me that there is not a local training opportunity in sociocracy, at least in my native language. I guess people would be interested to find more about sociocracy if somebody will offer them the opportunity to learn, practice and implement sociocracy in their native language. As far as I know, Adrian is very interested in spreading sociocracy in Romanian for Romanians, wherever they might work or live. I don’t know how the circumstances are in other countries, but here, certified knowledge and expertise “open doors”, sometimes in unexpected ways.
As Adrian told me some time ago about spreading sociocracy in our native language, "in our country people are hungry but there is not enough sociocratic food available on the table, in Romanian’'. We are preparing some “sociocratic meals” for people to “eat” and “digest” in Romanian. However, hungry people still ask you for a “chef” certificate …
To make the long story short, our good intentions are welcome, but are still not enough. That’s why we are looking to learn and to practice sociocracy enough to be able to make some waves and determine people to look at sociocracy and pay more attention to it.
I guess the continuous support offered by SoFA for the spreading of sociocracy in the Romanian language (including but not limited to “SoFA Romania” section of this discussion forum) will have unexpectedly beneficial effects. I am looking to see in the forum posts in languages other than English and Romanian. As I know, many people find forum posts more friendly than articles. I guess we could use this approach for networking and to find more friends for sociocracy.
I’m glad Google helped me translate my thoughts from Romanian to English. I hope my comments are understandable …
Juliana, I am humbled by the eloquence of your expression in what is a second language for you–even with AI help, it is impressive and VERY understandable. I love your “chef” “menu” and “food” metaphors!
Adrian is also doing impressive work to promote both the theory and practice of vital and effective sociocratic process–it may people who have had to endure the painful loss of empowered self-governance–or their children–can better understand how important it is to have choice in our lives–so many people in the US seem to take some aspects of evolved social culture for granted.
I wish you much success in your endeavors. Perhaps setting up a small, locally-based action group in your neighborhood much be used as a prototype to implement sociocratic methods and teach them through direct engagement?
I was a member of an amazing art-based cultural change action group decades ago and we used consensus. It was only because I sat through many five hour meetings only to have them end with the most powerful member objecting to–and stopping—a plan everyone else had agreed on that I began to look for other, more effective ways to share influence and authority.
I heard about sociocracy a couple of times through word of mouth, but my first exposure was a webinar Ted Rau gave to the Organizing Degrowth Network.
Organizing Degrowth Network, Degrowth Collective, and California Doughnut Economics Coalition - all very much in the beginning stages of implementation.
I think what’s most fun is learning about the reasons behind each protocol - everything seems very intentional and to have evolved rather than simply a rule that we’re now stuck with.
The steep learning curve. Hearing and responding to people’s criticism of sociocracy when they haven’t had a lot of experience with it.
Welcome to the SoFA discussion forum and congratulations for being a SoFA member.
I resonate with your approach. Sociocracy method and processes are something people learn easily, but we need a lot more time to understand the “why” behind.
I remember something Ted Rau said (quote): “Sociocracy is like a language with many dialects.”
I’m interested in how the organizations you mentioned above implement sociocracy and how you keep the balance between sociocracy training and peoples’ personal development.
I joined SoFA last year and I realized that there is no sociocracy without people to learn, understand, practice, adopt and implement it.
These sound like very interesting organizations, Anne! I’m particularly interested in collective work around trying to resist the economic growth paradigm, but also in my experience this seems like a very difficult thing to do. There is a lot of social momentum behind growth. Have you found a lot of camaraderie and support in those organizations? I’m also curious about how the process of integrating sociocracy into that work is going for you and the others in those organizations!
Working against the economic growth paradigm is certainly an uphill battle, but there’s certainly many of us who enjoy that struggle. Last week, there was a decision at the latest degrowth conference to create an International Degrowth Network and adopt sociocracy as its governing structure. I will be part of that process, so I can try to give updates, but I suspect it will take a long time. It’s very exciting and daunting!
i’m Craig from SCCAN (Scottish Communities Climate Action Network), and we are operating sociocracy for our organisation. I heard about Sociocracy around five years ago when I was looking at alternative structures for organisations while working for the Knoydart Foundation.
The best part of Sociocracy for me is see what new projects come to fruition through the autonomy people are given, that couldn’t have occurred through a traditional structure. I struggle a bit with ensuring there’s no overlap between circles.
Welcome to the SoFA discussion forum. I’m interested in learning more about the work of your organization - SCCAN (Scottish Communities Climate Action Network) and any other new projects that ‘come to fruition’ through the autonomy people enjoy in sociocracy.
Climate activism is a bad idea. CO2 is not pollution. If CO2 levels drop below 200 ppm, life on Earth becomes impossible. During the recent Ice Age the levels were very close to that extinction level. Anyone who values life on Earth should not seek to lower CO2 levels. 200 is the lowest level they ever were. Before that they were much higher and the biosphere thrived. Anyone using sociocracy should not ignore “objections” such as mine. I’ve been an environmentalist since 1970, but never bought into climate alarmism, unless I’m alarmed by anyone wanting to reduce CO2 levels to the point of extinction of life.
Hi there, Cecile here from Cape Town, South Africa.
How did I hear about Sociocracy?
I heard about Sociocracy through a friend that uses it in an Educational setting.
What organizations do you belong to, and to they practice sociocracy?
I don’t belong to any organizations, but we are a small group of unschooling families that would like to get more organized and our long term dream is to open a learning centre for Self-Directed learners.
What aspects of sociocracy are particularly fun for you?
I have enjoyed learning about Sociocracy and use a lot of the principles organically in our home to make decisions as a family
What aspects of sociocracy do you struggle with?
I have read the books, busy reviewing them now and have done SOLT, But to implement it in a group feels daunting.
Thank you for creating this forum and looking forward to learning more…
