This is a CTP of initiative: Ecovillage Bergen (Netherlands)
Already in 2011, before the ecovillage materialised on a physical location, the initiating group started to work with a decision-making method called sociocracy. “That was an important point for me. I think it is so important that we would not be sitting here if we would not have done that" (co-founder 1). Sociocracy is a system of governance that uses consent-based decision-making among individuals and an organizational structure based on task-specific circles (working groups) with relative autonomy.
Discovering the method of sociocracy and starting to work with it, was critical because it provided a tool to make decisions as a community. “I always say it's not difficult to build an ecovillage physically, but the group, that is the major challenge” (co-founder 1). For each ecovillage initiative, one of the first challenges that it faces, is how to take decisions together. Formal democracy through majority voting is often not seen as a viable method for a small community. As such, many ecovillages try to work with full consensus, which often does not work either. “Then you have made consensus minus one, because there can always be one idiot, and then you can go quickly to minus 3. So that was a problem: how do you ever get to make proposals and decide? If someone yells the loudest he makes decisions. If someone feels they have not been heard, he gives no consensus. So it just does not work” (co-founder 1).
The main principles of sociocracy is that each individual is heard. Another important principle is to distinguish interpretation from opinion, to share those in a deliberation in a circle, and to really listen to each other before reacting. Instead of aiming for full consensus, in which everyone fully agrees, sociocracy uses the concept of people giving consent if they do not have substantial objections, so that the group can move on.
Although many ecovillage initiatives experiment with alternative decision-making forms, including sociocracy, they rarely work with sociocracy to such a high extent as Ecovillage Bergen does. “Many other eco-communities do not really work with sociocracy. They tend to decide with consent until a board member decides otherwise"(co-founder 1).
One of the reasons that Ecovillage Bergen applies sociocracy to the fullest, is that co-founder 1 has become an expert and promotor of the method. After following a first course in 2011 (which was discovered by coincidence – see ANTICIPATION), co-founder 1 became fascinated by the method. Today, s/he is a certified sociocracy trainer, giving workshops in various countries. S/he believes that “the world is ready for sociocracy”, involved in implementing sociocracy in the Global Ecovillage Network, and excited to see that the philosophy is increasingly being picked up across countries and organisations.
Sociocracy is a method for co-producing decisions. Co-founder 1 describes it as a method to “reach collective intelligence”, in which everybody can contribute: "when you are really creating collectively, that's the most beautiful thing there is. Then you use everyone in their full potential and get decisions that are supported by everyone”.
One of the ways in which the principles of sociocracy are realised, is by sitting in a circle, an important starting point for any sociocratic process. “If you are not sitting in a circle you cannot see each other well. The equality is symbolised by that circle. The easiest is to sit on the ground, preferably keeping the middle empty. If one person sits on a chair and the other on the ground, then it does not work, we have had very bad meetings like that. If you manage to have that equality in the circle, then you really reach the zen in the art of decision making. Sometimes we succeed in that” (co-founder 1).
Besides the circle, there are also certain skills that a facilitator needs, and there is protocol with some basic rules how to facilitate a meeting sociocratically. Such rules include things like never exceeding two hours for a meeting, having a proper opening and closing round, and practicalities like e.g. note-taking, an agenda and planning for a follow up meeting. However, the most important rules are about the process of deliberating content. “For every issue, you first paint the picture and gain consensus on that picture (…) Once that picture is clear then we go to the expression of opinions. The separation of picture and opinion is an essential part. Many people usually start to tell what they want and they do not listen to others anymore" (co-founder 1).
The sociocratic structure is seen as one that can also be combined with various other decision-making and communication methods. “Sociocracy is an empty method that you can fill in. If you decide that with consent then that's fine. Everyone should want it. Sociocracy is actually quite restricted (...) consent is the basis, but you can also decide with consent that someone else should decide about something” (co-founder 1). When asked how sociocracy relates to a method like ‘The Forum’, which is also often used in ecovillages, and has also been used at Ecovillage Bergen, co-founder 1 explains: “The forum is more a personal development thing, a type of conflict avoidance. [It is about] making connections in the group. There are more methods for that, such as Deep Democracy and non-violent communication. All that fits very well with sociocracy" (co-founder 1).
Since the ecovillage materialised on a piece of land in 2013, sociocracy has also been used as an organisational structure for co-producing activities in the ecovillage. This structure consists of five circles: (1) organisation circle, (2) social circle, (3) resident circle, (4) construction & housing circle, and (5) green circle. Then there is a ‘village circle’ that transcends the other circles. Each of these has two people (a coordinator and a representative) who have been chosen by consent to represent their circle in the village circle, which meets every two weeks. Moreover, each of the five circles has autonomy to work within their specific policy field, while transcending issues are discussed and decided in the village circle. The people involved in the circles include the core group, some of which already live in the ecovillage, but also volunteers who contribute to e.g. work in the garden (green circle) or in the construction of houses (construction circle). “In the green circle there is not one single resident. (…) That is the beauty of sociocracy that this is possible. With consent you can decide anything you want, even if it is not equally represented. There are many non-residents who take on crucial roles. As residents we can always say it if we have reasons not to support a certain plan. You can relax with this, you do not need be afraid that you get overruled" (co-founder 1). This means that non-residents can also be the coordinator of a circle. When asked whether that is problematic, co-founder 1 argues that it not, because coordinators are chosen based on consent and their expertise, e.g.: “"We have someone [non-resident] who knows a lot about gardens who is also a very pleasant person to work with, and whom we have chosen as coordinator of the green circle" (co-founder 1).
Ecovillage Bergen has been working with sociocracy for several years (since 2011), and co-founder 1 argues that all people in the core group are convinced by the method and agree on using it. However, volunteers and people who are interesting in joining, often don’t know about it, and need to be schooled in what sociocracy means. This comes with several challenges (see CONTESTATION).
Besides the fact that sociocracy is used as a method for co-production, it was also in itself ‘co-produced’. The course that co-founder 1 took in 2011 was offered by the “Sociocratic Centre” in Rotterdam, which also hosts “The Sociocracy Group”, which is described on its website as “a global sociocratic organisation with certified consultants, trainers and facilitators offering services to a wide array of clients around the world” (Website The Sociocracy Group, 2016). Co-founder 1 explains that sociocracy started in the business world, and was later also applied to NGOs, while the application to communities is relatively new. “It is a different context, where you can give less administrative support than required. It needs to be less precise. (...) In companies things are organized, you make a product and you go home. Here everything comes together, there is a huge amount of topics, which is very difficult to control and document. Plus there is no culture of writing down rules, it’s more about just doing it. That is kind of a tension, which also makes it different to apply sociocracy here”(co-founder 1).
In 2011, co-founder 1 followed a course on sociocracy, which consisted of several days. Co-founder 1 does not remember when exactly in 2011 the first meeting at Ecovillage Bergen took place in which they themselves applied sociocracy, but s/he does recall that right at that first meeting they immediately thought “this is just going to work” (co-founder 1).
Around that time, in 2011, they also decided as a group, to take on sociocracy as a way of working. “In that beginning phase, we decided with consent to work sociocratically, even before we knew what it was exactly. Retrospectively, now that I understand sociocracy better, it seems like a miracle that it all worked out. But it worked” (co-founder 1).
Sociocracy is primarily seen as a way to overcome contestations, to deal with disagreements in a constructive way and to avoid unnecessary conflicts. “"If we had not found and applied this in the early stages, I’m afraid we would not have made it. We would have had contradictions and conflicts a long time ago" (co-founder 1). The principles that each individual is heard, is essential to avoid conflict: “The core value of sociocracy is that you acknowledge the individual; that is an important principle to avoid conflict. That everyone feels heard and is involved in decisions (...) If people feel heard and seen, then they will not be obstructive and will co-operate productively and you can reach collective intelligence. I find it tear-jerking beautiful when that happens” (co-founder 1).
Nevertheless, sociocracy can also be a subject of contestation, in the sense that people who don’t know it tend to be sceptical and need to be convinced of the method’s added value. At the beginning, “there were two people who had total resistance to it. I was challenged to explain it well. I had to show them those brochures and also study them really well so as to be able to explain why it was so important. And with that I began to increasingly see how beautiful the method is. Still today I get emotional because I still think so. I saw how beautiful it is, and how difficult it is to apply” (co-founder 1).
Scepticism about sociocracy is mainly based on the (mis)understanding that it requires a lot of time. “"What is always mentioned, it that it takes far too long. If we have to make all those circles and things, and before everyone agrees, people think it takes far too long and that they don’t have the time for that. That is the main resistance" (co-founder 1). The co-founder, however, argues that it actually saves time eventually: “It is much faster and you can make decisions that are supported so they actually get implemented. It is extremely efficient. One of the core values is efficiency. If it is not efficient, you shouldn’t do it. If everyone sticks to the agreements, it is a very efficient method” (co-founder 1).
Another challenge that is really a disadvantage, is the need for schooling and training. “The need for training is not an advantage. Democracy, we do not need to learn that, that just seems easy (although it actually is not that easy). With sociocracy there is a lot involved, you have to make an effort" (co-founder 1). A third controversy around sociocracy is that “people with power feel threatened” in the sense that “their position is undermined when everybody is involved in decision-making”. This links to a more fundamental human nature that always tends to complicate any form of decision-making: “There are three things that stand in the way decision-making: Ego, fear and indifference. We all have to deal with those” (co-founder 1). Despite of these difficulties, the co-founder feels that most of these contestations are overcome when people experience a well-run sociocracy process. “Anyone who has participated in our village circle is immediately convinced. They just see how it works” (co-founder 1).
There are two tensions that remain around the issue of sociocracy, anno 2016. One is the difficulty that co-founder 1 is the only one who has been fully trained in sociocracy. “We did not have enough training. I was the only one who did the training. It would be helpful to have someone from the outside. Now everyone thinks I know everything. And they tend to think: ‘yeah yeah, you and your sociocracy, we know it by now". We have been trying for a year to get an internal school started. (…) Now we finally have a date planned” (co-founder 1).
Another difficulty that remains is that Ecovillage Bergen has many ‘new people’ who get involved as volunteers and aspiring residents. Those new volunteers often do not understand sociocracy and do not know how to apply its more basic principles. A related challenges is that the circles that have a high influx of new volunteers, have difficulty in being autonomous. “Too much is actually decided in the village circle. The aim is that the village circle takes decisions at the most abstract level. The idea is that circles are as autonomous as possible. Self-organization is an important principle of sociocracy” (co-founder 1). One of the thing that newcomers often do not understand, is the separation between decision-making and implementation. Decision-making is done in a circle meeting (where everybody can provide input), while the implementation “that you should do in the old fashioned way. One person gets selected to steer and manage the process. Some things are horizontal, but implementation is vertical. People are also selected by consent, so all positions are supported” (co-founder 1).
The discovery of sociocracy was not at all anticipated. In fact, the very need for using a specific decision-making method was not anticipated. Co-founder 1 even indicates that s/he used to be “allergic” to specific decision-making rules, and never realised why it was necessary. Having worked for the United Nations in the past, the whole point of an ecovillage was to work more intuitively, and co-founder 1 expected that things would just flow naturally. “I did not even know that sociocracy existed (…) I actually thought we were like a swarm of birds, where it is not clear who does what. But it is a beautiful swarm and I thought that is how we do it too: it will just develop anarchistically and organically. I thought all that stuff about vision, mission and goals was nonsense (…) It took a while before I realized that everyone has a [different] vision, mission and goal” (co-founder 1).
The fact that co-founder 1 followed the sociocracy course in 2011 was a coincidence and s/he did so reluctantly. Somebody in the original group of 40 people had heard about sociocracy and that there was a course offered in the Netherlands. When co-founder 1 originally heard about that, s/he thought: “I’m really not up for that, I am not a structure kind of person. Let’s not be complicated, this is already difficult enough”. However, three other people from the group signed up, and it so happened that one of those people got ill, and asked co-founder 1 whether s/he wanted to take the free spot. At that moment, the co-founder thought: “Well ok then. Then the train got stuck and I did not even make it that first day. The second time, that person was still ill and I was hoping that the train would be stuck again. But when I got there, I was captured by the idea [of sociocracy]. I'm not so theoretical, I'm more into learning by doing. Slowly but surely it started to fascinate me” (co-founder 1).
The main lesson from this critical turning point is how important it is to have a decision-making method that works, and “that you take supported decisions. Conflict prevention is thereby guaranteed. Conflicts will come anyway, but this way it will come significantly less” (co-founder 1). One thing that co-founder 1 would have done otherwise, is to start off with sociocracy from the start. “I would immediately introduce this decision-making method from day one. With the knowledge of today, this would be more or less the first thing I would do: decide how we are going to decide” (co-founder 1).
Another lesson is that sociocracy requires training in order for it to work. Although the principles of sociocracy are simple, the application is far from easy and requires a lot of practice. “The principle is very simple, but the application of it is very difficult. It's like a musical instrument, it is very simple but to play it is a whole different story” (co-founder 1). Also co-founder 3 indicates that that there are still things to learn and improve about their sociocratic approach: “Within the sociocracy, you need to have good arguments to be able to contribute something. It is very common for women to approach things intuitively and it is very difficult to formulate strong arguments in a circle where everyone is present. That is very difficult and that is something that can still be learned”.
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