Category: Sociocracy

  • My 10 Year Summary: What I Have Learned

    Contents 1. Introduction2. Background3. My Journey 3.1. The initial years (2012–2015) 3.2. The middle years (2016–2018) 3.3. The final years (2019–2022)4. Conclusions5. Afterword6. Acknowledgments7. Recommended Books 1. Introduction I started blogging ten years ago today (Sept 26, 2012). At the same time, I started searching for life-giving ways of working. This is a summary of my journey and…

  • Maverick & Sociocracy

    I have recently read Maverick: The Success Story Behind the World’s Most Unusual Workplace by Ricardo Semler, which is an international bestseller from 1993. While reading, I was struck by the similarities and differences between how Ricardo Semler runs Semco and The Sociocratic Circle-Organization Method, which was developed by Gerard Endenburg. Family businesses The first…

  • Organizing retrospective 109

    This is a post in my series on organizing ”between and beyond.” Other posts are here. This is a retrospective of what has happened during the week. The purpose is to reflect on the work itself. Here is my previous retrospective. Here is my next retrospective. What has happened? What needs to be done? This…

  • Book Review: Many Voices One Song

    Many Voices One Song: Shared Power with Sociocracy by Jennifer Rau and Jerry Koch-Gonzalez is a new book on sociocracy. The book is a collection and description of sociocratic tools and practices.1 Sociocracy is a set of principles and tools for shared power. The assumption is that power sharing requires a plan.2 Sociocracy is designed…

  • Real vs. fake sociocracy

    Introduction Bob Emiliani writes about real vs. fake Lean on his blog. Emiliani’s point is that real Lean includes respect for people. I think there is a similar situation with real vs. fake sociocracy. Fake sociocracy Gerard Endenburg says, for example, in this article that the greatest danger when introducing sociocracy is that it is…

  • Interview with Gerard Endenburg

    Here is Ben Kuiken’s interview with Gerard Endenburg “Sociocracy is the only way forward”. Endenburg says that: “Even in his own former company, the adjacent Endenburg Electronics, the double clutch [double-link] is no longer intact.” This means that Endenburg Electronics isn’t fully sociocratic any longer. It’s not mentioned in the article, but the reason seems…

  • Analysis of Sociocracy and Holacracy

    This post is part of my series on organizing “between and beyond.” Other posts are here. The purpose of this post is to explore the history and key assumptions of Sociocracy and Holacracy®. The post is based on my previous posts about Sociocracy and Holacracy. The analysis is summarized here. Background I first heard about…

  • Organizing in between and beyond

    This is the first post in my series on organizing “between and beyond.” Other posts are here. The last chapter in Science, Order, and Creativity by David Bohm and F. David Peat is about “the order between and beyond”.1 Bohm and Peat write that most attempts to find order, say a new theory, involve searching…

  • Is sociocracy agile?

    Decision Making Systems Matter is an interesting article by Pieter van der Meché, Jens Coldewey, and Hendrik Esser, with Anders Ivarsson as additional contributor. The article is funded by the Agile Alliance and is a Supporting Agile Adoption publication. The authors describe how combining “Agile with ideas from Sociocracy provides … a way to create…

  • What is healthy power?

    The Healthy Power Alliance writes in its Healthy Power Manifesto that: “Healthy Power is the ability to do work over time in a way that is good for all the people and systems involved: the ecosystems, the human communities, the customers, the workers, the investors, the leaders, all of us. Healthy Power is circular, not…