Author: Zak Mensah

Working in collaboration is critical. Doing it is hard at all scales. To help overcome this challenge in recent years I have been adopting the governance approached called “sociocracy”. A model that uses consent based decision making rather than voting, HIPPO or one of the many other ways of working.

In essence you agree to a structured way of reporting, exploring and making decisions. This process is underpinned by “working circles – talented people with expertise in a small groups”. Each circle uses a structured series of “rounds” to work through a proposal. Easy right?! Ever thought “I can’t do it alone?” but thought working in traditional ways isn’t working there must be better ways? With working circles though we can break down our problems into pieces we can see and work through them. This is where the idea of working in groups of small circles come in. A working circle is a group no larger than 8 people who are tasked with a problem. Between them they use consent based decision making approach from sociocracy to solve the problem. A key mantra when seeking to ship a service is “good enough for now and safe enough to try” – hat tip to Pete Burden for the quote and support. Operating in this way means dancing with uncertainty. Instead of “here is the solution from the top, follow these instructions” it is more like “people are hungry please feed them and document along the way so we can make continuous improvement and learn along the way”.