Sociocracy: Better for Peers: governance is the new black

Vincent van der Lubbe
10 October 2020

[presentation is in English]

In the world of New Work, Teal, Agile, Self-Organisation/Self-Management, Systems Thinking and Blockchain, talk about governance is the new black. Just try to remember how often you recently read about teams experimenting with new ways of collaborating and deciding together.

One example could be Zappos, a daughter company of Amazon, which got known for using a governance framework called Holacracy. Its implementation caused controversy with 18% of employees leaving the company while early adopters like Twitter completely abandoned Holacracy. Meanwhile blockchain platforms are experimenting with voting and reputation systems to make decisions, with long discussions in distributed governance network DGOV about the pros and cons of the designs.

The most recent online conference on organisational model Rendanheyi, hosted by the global appliances giant Haier, invited management thinkers Gary Hamel, who just published his book Humanocracy, and Bill Fischer; both of their interventions focused on the opportunities for a more human ecosystem design approach to business. Creating conditions for autonomy, speed and entrepreneurship were only some of the main speaking points for presenters and panelists, who also had another topic in common: the need for co-creation, based on equivalence and care.

So how do we design for governance which is based on equivalence and care? Sociocracy might be a design choice to look at.

These are some questions Vincent would like to address and discuss with you (and feel free to add more by sending an email to me@vincentvanderlubbe.com):

  • Where did sociocracy come from?
  • What was the purpose? What problem is it supposed to solve?
  • How does it differ from other forms of governance?
  • What is the core principle?
  • What are core elements?
  • What are the core values?
  • What strands of sociocracy are there, what are the differences?
  • How does Holacracy relate to sociocracy?
  • Who is using sociocracy?
  • What are some examples of practicing sociocracy?
  • What doesn't work so well?
  • What are the best resources on sociocracy?
  • Where can I start?

Vincent van der Lubbe

Our speaker for this session on sociocracy is Vincent van der Lubbe. After a career in financial services in an award winning network company he worked briefly for the systems thinking management consultancy Malik before venturing out on his own researching and improving practices for effective collaboration in organisations. He is also the Chair of Sociocracy for All, a non-profit membership organisation with the mission to make sociocracy accessible. For all, not just experts.