I received the following information in an email. The
person who wrote it was soliciting new advocates for
'sociocracy'.
Activist Empowerment by Scientific Consensus [CNVC.org]
CNVC.org Center for Nonviolent Communication Recommends
Sociocracy
Part 1. Brief Intro to Sociocracy [scientific
consensus].
Part 2. Simple Sociocracy Demonstration
[contacts: LKINDR@yahoo.com, CNVC.org, Sociocracy.biz,
yahoogroups.com/group/sociocracy,
yahoogroups.com/group/nonviolentcommunication,
yahoogroups.com/group/IdealDay,
enlightenedbusiness.blogspot.com]
1.
Brief Intro to Sociocracy.
Fellow peace & non-violence advocates, there's a workable
scientific alternative to majority [and minority] rule that
eliminates problems with domination. It's called Sociocracy,
which has been studied by scientists, e.g. Prigogine and
Haken, in efforts to understand "self-organizing systems"
and their advantages. It developed first largely in Holland
with tremendous results for all kinds of organizations, and
now it is catching on in much of the world, including the
U.S.
There are
intentional communities, cohousing groups, a nonprofit, the
Center for Nonviolent Communication [CNVC.org], and a
software company [www.ternarysoftware.com,
enlightenedbusiness.blogspot.com] that already have begun
using and benefiting from sociocracy in the U.S. Many
activists strongly favor nonviolent communication and
behavior - and unanimous rule is the only way to insure
that, as majority rule and minority rule ignore some or most
of people's
needs, concerns and knowledge and overall this becomes at
least subtly abusive to society. Sociocracy appears to be
the most practical form of unanimous rule, or consensus.
Some of the benefits of sociocracy in all kinds of
organizations [business, nonprofit, political etc] have been
found to be:
-
Much more humane and fair treatment of all members;
-
Greater creativity and problem solving throughout the group
or organization;
-
Win-win-win for investors, management and staff <no losers,
no domination>;
-
Faster adaptation to changing situations;
-
Higher quality products and services; Higher staff commitment to and identification with the
organization;
-
Fewer, more effective and enjoyable meetings;
-
Less sick leave;
-
Better safety records; More awareness of costs;
-
Improved consideration for clients;
-
Very little burnout;
-
Program self-discipline;
-
Greater practice of leadership among peers;
-
Better organizational continuity when many volunteers are
involved;
-
Better support of fund raising;
-
Better accountability to the wider community.
2. Simple Sociocracy Demonstration
For any activists or others who attend
meetings and who are interested in seeing a little of what
sociocracy is like, here's a
way to try sociocracy that's pretty simple & painless:
2-1. Give your group members a
copy of the above intro on sociocracy to read
prior to the next meeting;
2-2. Also prior to the meeting, give a written
proposal to the meeting agenda planner, asking
that the group try out sociocracy briefly by using
the sociocratic procedure below to elect someone
at your meeting to be an Innovations Reporter,
either temporarily or longer-term. This person
would be in charge of a study of innovative ideas
that may help the group and then reporting
findings at upcoming meetings [This might include
study of wishcraft.com [success methods], CNVC.org,
P.E.T. etc, and of course sociocracy.biz - & see
contacts above];
2-3. Take a copy of your written proposal and one
or more copies of the above intro on sociocracy to
the meeting;
2-4. If the members are agreeable to your
proposal, here's a good way to proceed.
Sociocratic Election Procedure
-
Chairperson, read the job
description <for Innovations Reporter> and the
period of time that the elected person would
perform the job: <In this case, the reporter's job
is to be in charge of a study of innovative ideas
that may help the group and of reporting findings
at upcoming meetings>. If there's already such a
reporter, then the group may elect a Sociocracy
Reporter just to study and report on sociocracy,
or the like.
-
Chairperson, appoint an election
leader to give out ballots; everyone fill out the
ballots and then hand them to the election leader.
Tell everyone that the ballots should say this: I
<voter's name> nominate <nominee's name>.
-
Election leader, when the ballots
are in, read each one aloud and ask each person
the reason for his or her choice.
-
When all have answered, ask if
anyone wants to change votes.
-
After hearing everyone's reasons,
pick the name of anyone who seems appropriate and
say: Let's start with <name> as the first
consideration.
-
Ask each person if he or she
consents to the person you propose, and don't ask
your nominee until last.
-
If anyone does not consent to the
nominee, go back to step 5 and propose another
name in the same way and repeat this process until
someone is elected, or, if time is too short,
propose postponing the election until the next
meeting.
-
If someone is elected, give that
person the Intro to Sociocracy above and their job
description.
Note: In a normal sociocratic meeting
there's a short time scheduled at the end of the meeting for
evaluation of the meeting, in which each member can say what
parts went well and what parts did not. These comments are
often worth recording for later review. The group may like
to try this evaluation process briefly after electing the
Innovations Reporter. In this case it just requires asking
each member in turn for their best and worst comments on
this election process.
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