Starting a Sociocratic Market Organization from Scratch

I’ve been working on building a neighborhood market for a number of years and am nearing completion of the building permit but am having difficulty finding people who understand the concept and want to be a part of it. In my mind the market would be a great contribution to the community and shift people’s thinking toward a healthy direction. I’m more of a builder type and it seems like a connector type would be best to find people and help them to join and happily function in sociocratic circles. The only idea I have to bring this about is to hire a good connector person and have her get training in sociocracy before beginning at this. Is there a better way, or even another way to consider?

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@eric.tolson Input here? @gzaller, Eric has worked with sociocracy for markets.

That sounds wonderful, but not “before” beginning this. If you find a connector now you will have a community of people to contribute ideas and help. They (and you) could do training along the way – develop a relationship with a trainer who can be there for the long run. The market begins when you have the people.

Ideas

  • Understand why people are having difficulty understanding the concept… what can you adjust: in your idea, in who you’re approaching, in how you’re presenting it
  • Find your people: who else is already doing something related to your vision and mission? And, if you bring on someone who’s more of a community weaver, they can start making these connections immediately without knowing sociocracy first
  • Onboard people who are aligned with sociocratic priciples of equivalence, transparency, and effectiveness - then implement sociocracy together

That makes sense. I was thinking of using the consultant to find these people but a friend suggested having a targeted event there and introducing sociocracy along with the concept of the market at that time. I’m going to post another question about how to prevent or protect against opportunistic people who want to gain control for personal reasons.