Sociocracy: an introduction to consent-based decision making

This session is facilitated by Kayleigh Walsh, Polly Robbins

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About this session

We’ll introduce the theory of Sociocracy and the range of its users, from Toyota to the Center for Nonviolent Communication to UK worker co-ops as a way of showing that it’s scaleable and universally used. We’ll be practising what we preach, so users will be involved from the start of the session in a sociocratic process!

Despite the unfamiliar and mysterious sounding name, Sociocracy is a simple concept that can be applied to decision making both internally and commercially, as well as structuring an organisation. We will present it in a simple and straightforward way before suggesting a proposal for smaller groups to address via a Sociocratic round - this will enable them to critique what we present, as well as get some first hand perspective on how it works.

Goals of this session

We know that in order to decentralise, we need to help us with the decision-making process. The goal here is to educate and provide participants with a tried and tested structure that supports decentralisation with a solutions-focused emphasis, and for people to understand the benefits and introduce it to their own communities. We also want to show that Sociocracy contributes to participants voicing their opinions and feeling empowered.

We ran a similar session last year and it got really busy, so we know that there is appetite for learning about consent-based decision making in the Mozilla community. We want people to leave knowing that they can make small changes to the way they make decisions within their groups and organisations, so that they can move quickly where it’s safe.