Design effective meetings and teamwork with Sociocracy
Course description
Sociocracy is a participatory democratic and dynamic governance method that brings cooperation capability, commitment and empowerment to people. Sociocracy works with decision-making process in teams, organizations and society as a whole. We are the first trainers of Sociocracy among the southern EU countries; our aim is to strengthen trust among people and to empower these societies.
This is training that can be taken as a two-year programme or as a single one part course. Participants completing the two-year programme acquire knowledge for opening their own center for sociocracy and receive a certificate of completion. Each part of the training is taught as a six-day workshop oriented to building up a sociocracy trainers team internal to the organization.
For those organizations wishing to complete the two year programme, we recommend that at least two or three participants are chosen to complete the entire course. These members would be delegated with the responsibility of introducing sociocratic methods to the organization.
The training involves taking part in workshops and also practising sociocratic methods in the participants’ organization after the training. This method is based on the principles and practices of sociocracy as created by Gerard Endenburg of The Netherlands in 1970.
Participants learn to facilitate meetings in a sociocratic way and, in the first part of the training, acquire experience on how to work in a Sociocratic Circle. In the year after the first training workshop, the participants practice sociocratic facilitation and document at least 10 sessions. Participants reflect upon these experiences within a study group and with the help of sociocratic supervisors.
The main goal of the second year of training is for participants to learn how to train their teams on how to work in a Sociocratic Circle. That is, participants are trained for the role of Sociocratic CircleTrainer in order to bring the practice to their own organizations.
First year: Become a Sociocratic Facilitator
- After the training and one year of reflecting upon their progress in supervised study groups, the participants are deemed professional Sociocratic Facilitators.
Second year: Become an Internal Sociocratic Circle Trainer
- After the second training session, participants continue with their supervised study groups. Together, the study group creates an internal Sociocracy Team in order to transfer the knowledge to their organizations.
Methodology
Through training and supervised practise, participants become professional Sociocratic Facilitators. The first training session of the Sociocratic Circle Organization Method (SCM)* was designed by concept originator Gerard Endenburg. The second educational part of the SCM is the practicum or documented practise of SCM by the participants as sociocratic CircleTrainers in their own organizations. Upon completion of the second training session, a participant becomes a Certified Sociocracy Expert who can train and support other organizations in implementing Sociocracy.
“Structure creates behaviour. Changing structure changes behaviour.” Gerard Endenburg.
In a sociocratic circle, that is, in the meeting of a sociocratically organised group, every person has equal say in decision-making. The meeting structure of SCM* informs the behaviour of the circle members. The core of the first training session is to gain competence in facilitation of sociocratic meetings to ensure that every voice matters. A collective wisdom arises at the same time effectiveness and efficiency develop so that the group accomplishes tasks and goals with increasing trust.
The Four Basic Principles
The Four Basic Principles are:
- The Consent principle
- Meeting structure and consensual decision-making, practice with examples and cases by the participants.
- Four phases to create a solution, picture-forming, opinion-building and consent-forming.
- Participants learn in practice how to make meetings effective with the distinction of policy (basic) decisions and executive decisions.
- The Circle Structure
- Participants practice working in a sociocratic organization with shared responsibilities in different “circles” with clear “domains”.
- Real projects as examples will be worked out in sociocratic exercise circles using a circle aim, an aim realization process and distribution of tasks.
- The Double Linking
- We implement a sociocratic circle structure with two levels connecting the circles with two roles, the Circle Leader and the Delegated to practice equality and shared power between the two levels.
- In the exercise circles, participants implement the four process roles for shared leadership. Circle leader, Delegator; Facilitator and Secretary are implemented and participants gain experience in these roles.
- The Open Election
- It is the task of the Facilitator to facilitate an open election of functions and roles for the distribution of tasks among members
- . A well-designed sociocratic procedure that includes appreciation and realistic feedback helps each circle member build their potential.
Skills and tools transmitted
- Create vision, mission and aim/offer of a circle
- Use Development Talks as a sociocratic performance review
- Provide transparency inside the organization with a Logbook System
- Handle IT tools for online meetings
Benefits
Participants gain new knowledge, skills and practices for themselves and their organizations. The cooperative meeting structure creates new experiences and responses for all. Specifically, participants learn to:
- Implement a sociocratic teamwork in their professional settings. As Professional Sociocratic Facilitator they are able to offer sociocratic facilitation to any organization.
- Significantly increase the effectiveness of their decision making structures in their own organizations. Shared decision making also creates a shared responsibility in these organizations.
- Identify their own potential, increase confidence, minimize losses due to interpersonal friction and thus grow the productivity of their organizations.
- Develop personal competences, namely, leading processes, equality, patience and trust. Participatory and cooperative values are strengthened.
- Ultimately through these sociocratic decision structures to become co-entrepreneurs to share in cooperation and enjoy success.
- Become familiar with appreciative leadership methodology.
First year : Become a Sociocratic Facilitator
History of Sociocracy, Auguste Comté, Kees Boeke and Gerard Endenburg
- Gain an understanding of the methodology that creates “equality” because of shared power in decision making with the “Four Basic Principles”: “Consent principle”, “Circle Structure”, “Double Linking” and “Open Election”
- Design, prepare and facilitate effective meetings using the sociocratic meeting-format
- Exercises in consent decision-making and open election, reflection of learning
- Agenda-setting and preparation of agenda items
- Common aims/goal as a basis of all decisions in a circle
- The inner consent – decisions inside the individual (cognitive processing)
- Experience in dealing with objections, tensions, emotions and difficult situations
- Exchange and networking in relation to all organizations present
How to work in a sociocratic circle to reach the groups’ common aim
- Four process-roles in a sociocratic circle because of shared leadership and responsibility to all members: Circle-leader, Delegator, Facilitator and Secretary
- Strengthen effectivity and efficiency with the distinction between policy-decisions and executional-decisions.
- Aim-Realization-Process for the circle as leading-tool for the circle-leader and organizing the interfaces between circles
- The domain of a circle and of a circle-member as autonomous space to act
- Distribution of tasks with role-description and open election
- The circle-process of leading-doing-measuring in all activities of a sociocratic circle creates the continuous improvement process
- The development-talk for developing the individual in a sociocratic way.
Excursion – Outdoor activity
- Reflections
- Evaluations
- Closing
The didactical methods change always from role plays and practical exercises, to theoretical inputs, answering questions, reflecting experiences and collecting learnings.
After the first part, in the following year till September 2021 the participants have to work on, reflect and audit their progress in their study-groups, to become certified professional Sociocratic Facilitators.
Second year: Become an Internal Sociocratic Circle Trainer
Development-talks to finish the Facilitation Diploma
- Repetition of the lessons learned “How to work in a sociocratic circle”
- The role of the Internal Sociocratic Circle-Trainer and the “Sociocracy Team”
- The program “How to work in a sociocratic circle”
- Order clarification with the leader of a team – get an order
- First three training-meetings with the circle
- Through all 6 training-meetings learn the meeting-format and agenda-setting
- Explain the four basic principles
- Collect and decide the circles aim-criteria
- Training on the role of the leader, the facilitator and the delegate
- Work on the common aim of the circle
- Work on the aim-realisation-process
Last three training-meetings with the circle
- Finish the aim-realisation process
- Train the distribution of tasks
- Train the logbook-keeping and role of the secretary
- Elect and train the intern facilitator
- Measurement of the aim-criteria
- Handover the responsibility to the circle
Excursion – Outdoor activity
- Reflections
- Evaluations
- Closing
By completing the second year, you:
- Build up your intern Sociocracy Team
- Strengthen your study group and peer-learning
After the second year program the participants stay in their study groups and help each other create an internal Sociocracy Team in order to transfer the knowledge to their own organizations.
How to go on
Additionally, further modules in Sociocracy can be organised in their country. With a next three-day “module 3” they learn to understand the challenges in creating sociocratic circle-structures from the individual over organizations to society.
This module 3 is the precondition to start the three-year program to become a professional Certified Sociocracy Expert – CSE. A group of CSE is able to start the Sociocracy education-program in their own “Sociocracy Center”.
Programme (Two year)
Duration: 7 days in the first year + 7 days in the second year (optional)
Dates: Upon request
Location: Chania, Crete and Athens, Greece
Designed for participants/groups
Sociocracy is a tool for every person who works with groups of people to achieve common goals. The method creates ownership and fosters leadership for every member of the circle as every member of an organization benefits from the tool. “Getting things done” is a need of every organization.
Nevertheless, team leaders and process managers are particularly invited to attend, including professionals, human resources managers, leaders of private and public sector organizations, governance organizations, professional networks and change makers.
Instructors
Barbara Strauch is a leading educator on sociocracy in Austria and German-speaking area. She is trained in systemic constellation work, transaction analysis, project management, gender mainstreaming, quality and equality management, moderation methods, self-organization-methods and psychotherapeutic work. Ms. Strauch was the first Certified Sociocracy Expert (CSE) of the German-speaking area.
Ms. Strauch founded the Sociocracy Center Austria in 2013 and developed its program. She studied the lifework of Gerard Endenburg and Annewiek Reijmer who created in the Sociocracy Center Netherlands and founded the Sociocratic Circle-Organization Method. Barbara Strauch and Annewiek Reijmer co-authored “SOZIOKRATIE. Kreisstrukturen als Organisationsprinzip zur Stärkung der Mitverantwortung des Einzelnen” in 2018 (“Sociocracy. Circle structures as organizational principle to strengthen the co-responsibility of the individual”).
Instructors
Dr. Markos Perrakis, founder and managing director of Fractality, designs and implements projects in the areas of leadership development and strategic planning to promote effective communication and individual and collective process development.
Dr. Perrakis is one of the first persons in Greece to apply the methodology of appreciative inquiry for individual and organizational development. This approach seeks to strengthen human capital and social bonds to generate organizational capacity.
Fractality offers services in coaching, training, assessments, supervision, process facilitation and speaking, systemic consultation, solution focused and cognitive behavioural approaches, methods of participatory design, spiritual intelligence and psychometric assessment. Dr. Perrakis is a certified provider of Vocational Guidance and Professional Orientation and an ISO 9001 lead auditor.
Dr. Perrakis is a representative of the Association of International Institution Supervision in Europe, a member of International Intervision Groups, scientific assistant of the Society for Organisational Learning, and scientific partner of the European Union of Small and Medium Enterprises (EUMU) in Greece in the Strategic Planning and Human Capital Development programmes.
Dr. Perrakis holds a Ph.D. in social psychology on leadership styles and their efficiency in organisations and an M.A. in clinical psychology.
Venue
A. Our first part of the program takes place on the island of Crete in Greece in the pleasant seaside town of Platanias close to Chania, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Porto Platanias Village Resort, located on the northwest coast of Crete, provides luxurious accommodations and fully serviced workshop facilities. Beaches, local eateries, shops and sites are within walking distance of Porto Platanias. This setting provides ample opportunity for participants to continue discussions outside of formal workshop hours in a relaxed atmosphere.
The closest international airports are Chania International Airport (24 km) and Heraklion International Airport (165 km).
B. Our second part of the program will take place in Athens, Classical Athens was a powerful city-state that emerged in conjunction with the seagoing development of the port of Piraeus. A center for the arts, learning and philosophy, home of Plato‘s Academy and Aristotle‘s Lyceum,[6][7] it is widely referred to as the cradle of Western civilization and the birthplace of democracy,[8][9] largely because of its cultural and political impact on the European continent, and in particular the Romans.[10] In modern times, Athens is a large cosmopolitan metropolis and central to economic, financial, industrial, maritime, political and cultural life in Greece.
Participation Fee
Option A.
The fee for this course is 980 Euros each year. It includes tuition fees and educational materials, certificates. Beverages and a welcome cocktail, a one-day excursion (optional).
Accommodation and meals are not included in the above fees.
Option B.
Total full package price for participants with double room accommodation: 1,550€
All prices include:
– A 5-star hotel accommodation, 6 nights
– Breakfast
– Lunch
– Full 7-day workshop tuition fee
– Educational materials
– Certificate of participation at the end
*It does not include facilitators diploma, follow ups and supervision
Additional option:
– A full-day excursion with the group led by locals with local snacks and drinks – €50
Contact us
Questions or concerns? please contact us at [email protected] or call +302106010522. Cancellation Policy*
Until 30 days before the starting date of the selected workshop, cancellation will be free of charge and the pre-payment will be fully refunded. Between 30 to 15 days before the starting date of the workshop, 50% of the fee will be refunded. Within the 15 days before the starting date of the workshop no refunds will be made.