Events Calendar
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BUILDING ENTHUSIASTIC COLLABORATIVE TEAMS
with Sociocracy
Learning Workshop, 10 May, 2016, London, 09:00 - 17:00
Symbiotic Decision-making
Series: Building Enthusiastic Collaborative Workplaces with sociocracy
Module 1: Building Engaged Teams with consent decision-making
- Are your team decisions being met with resistance, with no or little buy-in or alignment?
- Does the workforce feel disengaged and demotivated, leading to high staff turnover?
- Is there too much pressure on managers and leaders to ‘perform’ and have all the answers?
- Do staff members feel undervalued, with little outlet for staff creativity?
- Does lack of consultation result in difficulty implementing the decisions?
- Are you and/or is your team keen to change all (or any) of that ?
If so, you may benefit from applying consent-based decision-making in your team or organisation:
Consent-based decision-making offers you a proven way for groups with common aims to reach optimal collective decisions. Member feel comfortable implementing these decisions because the perspectives of each member are taken into consideration, and objections are resolved by incorporating refinements into the decision. Members may not like or agree fully with a decision, but they can live with it as far as achieving the team's aims is concernred, it is within their range of tolerance to execute. The system creates group agreement in a very time efficient way.
Who is this learning workshop for:
Teams and project groups with common aims needing to take collaborative decisions, working across departments, including any planning or policy-making groups of people. This course should be of particilar interest to those wishing to implement change in their organisation, get more engagement and commitment in the workforce and implement participative working practices.
What you will learn:
You will learn the basic steps, rules and roles of the consent-based decision-making process (also known as formal consensus), with lots of chances to practice. You will learn how to make collaborative decisions by consent, and learn the basics of facilitating the process. The focus is partical with plenty of opportunities to practice.
Unique Value:
This is a unique approach to get team decisions quickly, by harnessing, unlocking and drawing on group mind for sharper solutions. Rather than trying to get all to agree on an issue, through adversarial debate as is conventionally the case, consent-based decision-making focusses on fine-tuning proposed solutions to a degree where no-one has any paramount objection that would hamper the execution of the decision, and if there are objections, further fine-tuning the solutions.
Benefits:
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Module 1: Building Engaged Teams with consent decision-making
The focus of this workshop is practical skills which you take back with you and apply immediately. This module is a self-contained course, you will learn valuable skills regardless whether you also participate in any of the other modules. This module, however, forms the basis of all other modules. The modules in this series are:
- Collaborative Decision-making ("short-form" consent)
- Holistic complex Problem-solving ("long-form" consent)
- Effective Governance Meetings (without the superfluous)
- Circle Role Distribution & Tasks (consent elections)
- Facilitation Skills & Other Circle roles
- Defining Common Purpose (VMA) and Double-linking
- Prototyping and Iterations, Reviewing and Evaluating
While the practical tools emanate from sociocracy, they are introduced here independently, so you learn particular skills you can apply immediately in the workpace, irrespective of whether the organisation is sociocratic, or indeed without you needing to know anything about sociocracy. This is a highly practical skills co-learning workshop.
Note that these skills also form the basis of sociocracy, as well as its derivatives, like Dynamic Goverance, Sociocracy 3.0, Flox, Circle Forward, IDM (integrative Decision-Making) and in particular Holacracy. The latter is a more elaborate system which also comprises the operational side of organisations and other add-ons. Learning collaborative decision-making through consent-building first is thus an effective way of familiarising oneself with the basics and testing the waters, before committing to sociocracy or to a more fully fledged system like Holacracy.
This co-learning workshop is highly practical, interactive and involves a lot of peer-learning in self-organised groups. There is a tremendous amount of practice involved, actually doing and practicing the skills. If there are sufficient numbers there will be a second workshop facilitator, Francois Knuchel, who will be introducing some new self-organising peer-based approaches we are developing and beta-trialling.
Work Better Together
While the word Sociocracy may be unfamiliar, its roots go back to philosopher and founder of Sociology Auguste Comte, via Quaker peace activists. Today it is used in businesses and communities looking to work more effectively and enjoyably. You might think of Sociocracy as what comes after democracy; a deeper, more genuine form of democracy, that can help us do a better job of working and relating with each other, whether at work, in community or at home.
In this workshop you will experience and learn for yourself that beyond big words and ideas, the essence of Sociocracy is simple and elegant, that it can easily be applied to improve many aspects of your life and work. Sociocracy is a system and set of tools, which puts in to practice the values that humans instinctively hold dear, but which often disappear when we try to get things done with others, even if we try to do things ‘democratically.’ It is how we might go about getting things done if we forgot everything we’ve learned and started from scratch, as if common sense was common.
Sociocracy is work as it should be.
- You will learn how to solve problems and make better decisions together, despite different opinions, without resorting to bullying or giving in, without taking all day over it, and that everyone can get behind.
- You will learn how to better use your time in and out of meetings, while keeping everyone on board.
- You will learn how Sociocracy embraces respect, trust, diversity, empowerment, shared leadership, honesty, collaboration, efficiency, transparency, responsibility, innovation and the equivalent value of us all.
- You will learn how to get stuff done, do more of the right things, and do more of what works.
- You will learn how to make sure that you are learning from what you do, how your team can learn and grow wiser, healthier and sharper over time.
This workshop will be great for anyone who wants to learn and practice healthier and more effective ways of working and relating. You can be a complete beginner, or if you have experienced something like this before, this might be a useful opportunity to deepen your practice and understand it from a different perspective. Sociocracy is sometimes referred to as an ‘empty method’, which enables it to sit alongside and enhance other tools in a variety of settings.
Participants will learn together in the mornings, have the afternoons to walk, swim, play and practice in a stunning area of natural beauty surrounded by mountain, forest and sea. To deepen your experience of co-learning, of co-creating, of being at the centre, as well as to provide this course at an affordable price, a little time each day will be for participants to help with the running of the place, which might include cooking, cleaning or gardening.
About Martin Grimshaw: “Putting the fun into Fundamental Change”
Martin Grimshaw is a facilitator
, trainer and organisational consultant committed to helping people do a better job of working on what matters. He co-founded SociocracyUK, along with the UK’s first fully incorporated Sociocratic company and probably the world’s first fully incorporated Sociocratic co-operative business.
He has been practising Sociocracy in work and in life since around 2008, training extensively with Nathaniel Whitestone and John Buck, and learning, practising and teaching with many others ever since.
Learning efficient collaborative decision making skills may have helped to save his life high up on a mountain. Martin especially enjoys sharing important work in a way that his Grandmother could understand it.
“Martin is a master, it’s like watching Roger Federer on Centre Court. It brought tears to my eyes, I’ve never seen anybody conduct… training with such kindness and patience. It was very impressive… He was playful, fun and unthreatening: exactly what was needed.”
Contact Martin if you have questions
A joint project between Thriving Planet (T/A There's Better Ways of Working), Caterfly and Open2Flow. Administered by Thriving Planet CIC
