A Concise Explanation of Sociocracy 3.0’s Consent Decision Making
Similarly to The Sociocratic Circle Method (SCM) Sociocracy 3.0 has a number of patterns that support decision making by consent. Consent is a key principle in S3. It’s an invitation to people in an organization to
raise, seek out and resolve objections to decisions and actions.
Holacracy, another derivative of sociocracy, takes a different approach to decision-making but does include the concept of objection.
Understanding what is meant by an objection is essential in the world of sociocracy-influenced approaches to decision-making because there’s some variation in opinion around what qualifies as one.
In Sociocracy 3.0 we define an objection as
an argument relating to a (proposed) agreement or activity that reveals unintended consequences you’d rather avoid, or that demonstrates worthwhile ways to improve.
You can read more about it here.
The process we use in S3 to make decisions collaboratively is called Consent Decision Making.
In essence, proposals become agreements when all objections have been considered and resolved. In the absence of further objections a decision is considered good enough for now and safe enough to try, until the next review.
In its simplest form, S3’s Consent Decision Making goes like this:
- Agree on why you’re making the decision
- Present the proposal
- Make sure everyone understands it
- Give people a chance to share thoughts and feelings they have about it
- Check if there’s any possible objections to the proposal
- If there are, start with one argument and test with the group if it qualifies as an objection → if it does, resolve the objection / if it doesn’t, move on to another possible objection and repeat the step
- Once all objections have been resolved, celebrate!
- And finally consider any concerns
Here’s a few videos if you’d like to learn more:
Objections are an Organization’s Best Friend
Some useful hand signs that can help the process
A (slightly dated) demonstration of Sociocracy 3.0’s Consent Decision Making
Lead Business Analyst | Scale-up advisor | Remote Work Influencer | Fractional COO | Helping remote & hybrid technology businesses grow with agility since 2010
3 å¹´I have begun teaching consent decision making to a group of executives. The most common place people get stuck is the part where they need to "agree on what the driver is". They ask me "what is the process to agree to the driver?", "so we are stuck in consensus again?" ... What is your advice for this initial agreement James Priest? Every time the term "agree" is used, the common understanding is that it is a consensus, and because the ineffectiveness and slow pace of consensus was the initial reason why they invited me to teach them a different method, they always (in all 5 workshops I've run with various sub-sets of the executive team) get stuck in this step and cannot seem to easily agree on the driver. Prioritization of various drivers as well as prioritization of considerations for one proposal, are another challenge they face. Again the reason is they want to have consensus about the prioritization and that is seldom possible. What is your way of helping with these mid-way decisions that need to be made on the way to a consent driver proposal/decision? cc: Lili D.
Executive coach & management consultant. Co-Founder at Open At Scale Inc. Book author and occasional keynote speaker
4 å¹´Consent-based decision making makes sure every member of that deciding-group has a voice. And that is important. It is rare to get a clear majority to agree. But with a consent-based approach we can get support through the willingness to live with the proposal as presented, or as amended. Consider the USA Constitution, a decision-rights schema. It requires a 2/3 majority for the biggest decisions to pass. That is apparently a very high bar and difficult to achieve. That is a big hint about how "easy" it is to get the majority to agree. Consent-based decision making ensures that all are willing to live with it and actually not impede or block and often actively support the consequences of the decision thereafter.
Heresiarch
4 å¹´That's interesting, but taking it to the letter wouldn't necessarily imply turning every issue into a subject for a tertulia? If not, maybe a consent-based approach would have to be devised to reach a selection criterion, a priori yet subject to continuing revision.? Another aspect is how far consent decision making is from consensus, i.e., once all objections have been dealt with successfully and the proposed decision gets approved hasn't a consensus been reached? Yet another exciting aspect is what should count as an objection, as implied not only by your necessarily short definition but also by the mention of a group test to qualify it as such - will that qualifying also follow a consent-based vetting approach?
I help people, teams and larger groups to start talking about stuff they avoid or don't recognize as important | Individual Coach | Team Coach, Teal Coach | Open Space Facilitator
4 å¹´James Priest Thanks for valueable insights. You have probably heard this question many times before, but here it is. How do you deal with very big decisions in sociocracy when they have a direct effect on many many people. It could be moving HQ to another town to attract people or save money and of course letting many people go due change in strategy (closing down a vertical division or a country horizontally)) or plain cost savings?
Executive coach & management consultant. Co-Founder at Open At Scale Inc. Book author and occasional keynote speaker
4 å¹´I'm spreading this around in the circles where I have membership. Explicit understandings about decision-rights are essential.