Sociocracy

Sociocracy is a way of governing an organization through circles that each decide by consent: a proposal passes when no member of the circle has a reasoned objection to it. Every member carries the same weight, since one reasoned objection is enough to send a proposal back for rework. The Dutch engineer Gerard Endenburg turned it into a method in the 1970s at Endenburg Elektrotechniek, the electrical engineering company he ran.

Where sociocracy comes from

The French philosopher Auguste Comte coined the word in 1851. Its modern meaning comes from Kees Boeke, a Dutch Quaker educator who ran his school through decisions made together with the pupils. Endenburg, one of those pupils, later applied the same principle to a company.

The four rules of sociocracy

• Circles make their policy decisions by consent. The circle works on each objection until the proposal is acceptable to everyone.
• The organization is made of circles. Each one has its own area of responsibility and decides how to run it.
• Two people link each circle to the one above it: the leader appointed by the higher circle and a delegate the circle elects. This double link carries information both ways.
• A circle elects people to its roles by consent, after an open discussion of who fits each one best.

Consent differs from consensus. The question asked is whether members can live with the proposal, rather than whether they all prefer it, so a circle decides faster and revisits its decisions as the situation changes. Holacracy took circles and consent-based decisions from sociocracy and wrote them into a stricter set of rules.