When we put someone in a role in a sociocratic organization, we use a transparent process of selection by consent. At the start, each circle member in turn nominates someone for the role. They give reasons why their nominee is well suited to the qualifications and responsibilities defined in the role description. Then each person…Continue reading

Human behaviour will work around poor design, but it does so at a cost! I wanted the kitchen to be the centre of the house, where I could keep an eye on the garden, the children and comings and goings from the house. My husband wanted the kitchen to be a place where he could…Continue reading

We’re all spending so much time in online meetings, that it’s worth a little effort to use a virtual platform in the best ways we can. Here are some tips. You probably already know that it can help a meeting if everyone has their video on when possible (see key #2 in 7 Essential Keys…Continue reading

In ordinary times, meetings can run the gamut from dismal to invigorating. There is possibly even a wider range in this time of economic upheaval and physical distancing, when many of our “normal” practices for productive meetings are disrupted. Now with so many virtual meetings, how do we keep some of the spirit and function…Continue reading

Remember in-person meetings? When we would be in the same physical room with in-the-flesh people? If we’re fortunate, we had meetings where people established trust and rapport, respected and were curious about each other’s ideas, and thought creatively together. Or maybe meetings were occasionally like that, or we hoped they would be. Now with so…Continue reading

As the COVID-19 pandemic unfolds many businesses are being forced to make hard decisions. Not only are teams working remotely, leadership is triaging financial bleed through staff layoffs and restructuring. In many companies with a traditional top-down organisational structure, managers alone make these decisions without broad team consultation. Workers lower on the ladder have little…Continue reading

Dan Pink knows something about what motivates us. In this RSAnimate video he shares some surprising findings about what really moves us to perform better, to do our best, to stretch ourselves. His most general finding is that for all but purely mechanical tasks – that is, for anything that requires a bit of conceptual…Continue reading

This is the third in a three-part series, and is an excerpt from a white paper by the same title. Part 1 and part 2 listed four pitfalls of a top-down organization: (1) communication goes one-way, (2) the person who makes the decisions creates a bottleneck, (3) management and workers become adversaries, and (4) workers…