Site Admin – The Sociocracy Consulting Group

Whole Body Consent

November 27, 2012November 27, 2012Site AdminUncategorized

The world of business is divided into owners, managers, workers, suppliers, customers and externalities. The story told in business school for the past forty years has been that the job of management is to serve the interests of the owners. The workers are to be controlled or negotiated with by management. Suppliers should be valued…Continue reading

Co-operative Principles

November 13, 2011December 20, 2020Site AdminUncategorized

[Written by Nathaniel Whitestone, cross posted from the DecisionLab blog] I am passionate about economic democracy — not so much in the sense of majority rule voting, but in the sense of the people involved in something controlling it together. Some people have argued that, for this purpose, organising as a sociocratic business is better…Continue reading

The Key

October 11, 2011October 11, 2011Site AdminUncategorized

“I can take one look at an organisational chart and tell you whether they will still be in business in a few years’ time.” Philip smiled at me and raised his eyebrows. I was already deeply impressed with his insight and achievements, but with this he had me hooked.

The Stop Button

August 25, 2011August 25, 2011Site AdminUncategorized

[edit Nov 14 2011: Now it is the USA, and people are getting clear about what they want. Need a stop button!] London is burning. The world saw an Arab Spring, and in London and San Francisco — across Europe and North America — we celebrated other people’s civil discontent as a sign of positive…

Increased Staff Engagement

Our practitioners and members of the staff seemed happy enough, but they weren't really engaged in the business of running our center. All the management thinking seemed to float up to me. Now, with sociocracy, everyone is communicating about our processes. We are getting more efficient and some of the load is coming off my shoulders.

Executive Director of a Vermont healthcare center

Productive Give and Take

Sociocracy is very effective at creating a productive give-and-take between the manifold perspectives that exist in any university. The inner core of an organization can express itself more fully once the rigid categories of levels and hierarchies are abandoned in favor of a more integrated model.

Dr. Edward Clift, Dean, The School of Media Culture and Design at Woodbury University, Burbank, CA

Fewer Meetings, Better Decisions

We adopted sociocracy and all of a sudden there is a room full of empowered people helping make decisions. People feel different. I’d say that at the end of 100% of our circle meetings - where we set policy - everyone says, 'My goodness. I feel so much more energized.' We have fewer meetings over time as we’ve implemented sociocracy, the decisions are better, and the follow-through is better because everyone’s on board.

Paul Kervick, Outreach Coordinator and Board Member, Vermont

Creative Decisions that Last

We used a sociocracy consultant to facilitate our Steering Council meeting and an annual Community meeting for our religious congregation, where we dealt with some emotionally-charged issues. She did a skillful job. We were all glad that we were able to arrive at creative decisions, and those decisions have lasted.

Elyse Seidner-Joseph, Chairperson, Steering Council, P’nai Or Philadelphia, Philadelphia, PA

Professional Support Pays Off

My advice to organizations planning on implementing sociocracy is to get assistance from a sociocracy consultant. Doing that improved and speeded up the process for us, rather than leaving us to reinvent the wheel, which can be time consuming and costly.

Richard Heitfield, President, Creative Urethanes, Winchester, Virginia