Event Details

Professor Daniel King from Nottingham Trent University and Dr Martyn Griffin from Durham University will present this OWT seminar.

Abstract

Traditionally leadership within alternative organizations (those seeking flatter, less hierarchical structures) have all too often suffered from a lack of gender diversity and inclusivity (Sobering, 2016), arguably due to the privileging of masculine, confrontational and aggressive forms of communication. In recent years a new form of governance – called sociocracy – has emerged within alternative organizing, that attempts to include and truly embrace a wider array of voices in the decision-making process (Buck and Villiers, 2007: 249; see also Romme, 1999). Sociocracy is a method of organizational governance that centres around three core notions, entwined within a cross-organizational democratic bureaucracy. Firstly, equivalence of voice as practised within sociocracy is an effort to structure decision making so that all members of the organization have equal chance to be heard and considered. Secondly, equivalence of voice is achieved by asking organizational members to consent to decisions in circles rather than by relying on management hierarchy. Thirdly, a central feature of sociocracy is its commitment to an inclusive environment through using Non-Violent Communication (NVC) (Rosenberg and Gandhi, 2003). NVC asks organizational members to evaluate their own feelings and understandings of an issue to discover their underlying needs. In doing so they can then make requests that fulfil these needs based around notions such as autonomy, meaning, interconnection and peace. The intended consequence of sociocracy is that it enables the group to carry out compassionate and inclusive governance within the organization by providing equal voice, feedback and respects everybody’s needs and emotional requirements (Rau and Koch-Gonzalez, 2018).

In the paper we explore the results of a three-year ESRC project that explores sociocracy at work and the barriers to implementing more democratic and equal organizational workplaces. The project involves the exploration of 24 sociocratic organizations and data consisting of interviews with over 100 individuals who practice sociocracy and the opportunities and challenges this involves, particularly with democratising leadership. We are especially interested here in understanding how the features of equivalence of voice, consent and NVC contribute to greater inclusivity and diversity at work, especially for women and minorities who may have traditionally been silenced in organizations as they do not contain suitable ways of leading or languages of resistance (See Bevan and Learmonth, 2013). We are curious within this paper to explore how sociocracy – as an emerging and as yet under-researched model of alternative organizing – may provide freedom through a democratised bureaucratic system that empowers people through rules and ways of behaving that are inclusive. We do not offer sociocracy as a panacea to the issues of diversity and inclusion in leading at work but critically explore it as a potential model to improve our understanding of alternative possibilities.