Sociocracy 3.0 in Panta Rei

Since 2014 we are using Sociocracy as a governance system to structure our teams. It is still ideal for our decentral, transnational structures.
Many members of our teams where so inspired by the method that they became sociocracy trainers themselves. Here is the website of ecobasa's founder Arne teaching Sociocracy. Since we first adapted Sociocracy, our friends and teachers developed the method further to become Sociocracy 3.0. It inherits some developments from Holocracy and something new: The Drivers. Each circle, role, policy, action and organisation has a driver, a reason why they have been created and in what context they are needed. If the context or the needs change, the driver and the structure changes, too. We are still in the process of redefining our organisations drivers and values.

Since S3 is relatively new and we would like to test and prove how S3 actually performs in intentional communities, businesses and networks. We gathered in Italy, in the community Panta Rei to learn the newest developments of S3 and start our research organisation using S3. Almost the whole gift-network team was present and we had some great success, with a proposal forming and some role definitions.

During the course we where also organising our first gift-ambassador training. We were still looking for a hosting community. As we had a lot of communities from the Iberian and Italian ecovillage networks present, we just asked the whole group one evening who would like to host us. Irene, the founder of Amalurra community in Spain really liked our project and invited us to host the training. You can see her in the middle of the post picture.

Here are some insights from the S3 course:

In order to make good decisions in a group, we want all voices and concerns to be heard.

Some food for thought:

• Objections are gifts to the group.
• Tensions are seeds for transformation.
• If you have more than 5 priorities, you have NO priority!

I also took with me a valuable insight about artful participation. The question that guides artful participation is the following: Is my behaviour in this moment the best contribution i can make to the effectiveness of this collaboration?

It is also a journey of unlearning old patterns, the same way i experienced it with Dragon Dreaming or Non-violent communication. This journey is like preparing the ground for the seeds to grow.