Thanks to next week’s Creating Space, Collective Leadership has been on my mind a lot recently. It’s also been a key element of the new Identity Commons. One of the issues we’ve been grappling with is decision-making. To understand why this is a challenge, you have to understand the underlying structure and philosophy of the organization. (M5R)
Ultimately, Identity Commons is a Community Mark that represents a set of values concerning Digital Identity. It’s a name bestowed on the community of folks who care about User-Centric Identity. If you care about this stuff, then you are part of Identity Commons. There is nothing to join, and you are free to use the name and logo as a way of demonstrating your support of these values. (M5S)
Why this is such a powerful and important construct is a topic for another day. What’s interesting about this particular community is that there’s also a corresponding legal structure, a nonprofit organization that is in the process of being incorporated. This organization consists of community “Stewards” — people appointed by the community to represent the interests of particular sub-communities (“Working Groups”) and who are responsible for managing the tangible assets of the commons. There are rules for becoming Working Groups and Stewards, but they are extremely lightweight. (M5T)
All of the Stewards comprise a Stewards Council. Each Steward has an equal vote on all matters. There is a Chair, but that position is mostly facilitative. There is also a Chief Catalyst, someone (not necessarily a Steward) who is responsible for handling the operational duties of the organization and catalyzing action in the community. (M5U)
It’s a fascinating, but delicate structure. The Stewards Council has an important leadership responsibility, but that role is distributed equally among all of the Stewards. How do Stewards exercise leadership effectively given this structure? Decision-making via voting is clumsy in many contexts, and yet that’s the only process that we’ve actually defined. (M5V)
We’ve had a number of interesting conversations on the topic, and the latest discussion recently surfaced a lurker, Martien Van Steenbergen, who cited an interesting reference on holacracy. Martien quotes the following excerpt (emphasis his): (M5W)
Another common question is about the “possible votes” in integrative decision making. At first it can sound like there are two possible votes on a proposed decision — “consent” or “object” — though that’s missing a key point. Consent isn’t about “votes” at all; the idea of a vote doesn’t make sense in the context of consent. There are no votes, and people do not vote. (M5X)
People do say whether they know of a reason why the proposed decision is outside the limits of tolerance of any aspect of the system, and then decision making continues to integrate that new information. This isn’t the same as most consensus-based processes — either in theory or in practice — although it does sound similar at first, especially before an actual meeting that seeks consent is witnessed. (M5Y)
This quote is keying on the difference between Collective Leadership and consensus leadership. They are not the same thing. With Collective Leadership, you are acknowledging the multi-faceted requirements of leadership, and you are empowering those best suited to meet those requirements to fulfill that leadership role. You are not voting on every decision, which would be a sure path to disaster. (M5Z)
One of the ways this manifests itself is by making decisions “without objection.” This is a technique from Roberts Rules Of Order that Joaquin Miller brought to our attention. Essentially, you empower people to act, unless someone in the group objects, at which point an alternative process kicks in. Everyone still has a voice in the decisions, but it is a proactive rather than a reactive style, and it encourages action rather than stagnation. (M60)
I believe that when you have great collaborative process, voting is a rubber stamping process, even when the topic is controversial. In other words, the actual decision-making process starts well before any vote happens. Healthy deliberation results in Shared Understanding, which in turn helps to surface clear courses of action that navigate through the obstacles of contradictory ideologies. When there is pressure for movement (another pattern of high-performance collaboration), then people will rally around those courses of action. (M61)