As adapted from: Liberating Organizations by Sandra Kim, pages 17-35, this is how to make changes to org processes using a lightweight decision-making process in governance meetings. This is a lot easier in practice than it is to read it, but here it is:
How to Adopt Proposals
Person Describes Agenda Item: this can be a tension or a proposal
Discuss the proposal, doing rounds of the following prompts:
What do you appreciate about the proposal?
Everyone present briefly shares what they appreciated about the proposal, without any cross-talk.
The common emotional impact of this is:
Helps set a more positive tone for the conversation and grounds it in seeing what is there - versus what often people critically assume isn’t there.
Emotionally supports the proposer by having their work be seen and valued explicitly and in a group setting.
Can often reduce the emotional charge, if there is any.
What clarifying questions do you have about the proposal?
All questions are quickly listed out, without any cross-talk. They are then organized and prioritized, and then answered by the proposer.
The questions are first collected because answering one-by-one can lead to a disproportionate amount of time spent on the first couple questions, which may not even be the most important ones to answer and doesn’t get an accurate sense of the range of questions.
If trust needs to be built and/or if there’s conflict and tension, the proposer can do a mini-decision-making process on how to organize and prioritize the questions so there’s explicit shared agreement on what’s most important to address first.
The common emotional impact of this is:
Helps people feel their questions are equally solicited and considered while being able to see how their question weigh against the full list of questions at the same time. So if it is not addressed first, there’s more understanding of why and it’s not taken personally.
Helps people turn their critiques into questions, which reminds them that their assumption may not be true and helps them to be more curious and open to the answer.
Helps the proposer to receive those questions in a more spacious way because they won’t feel like people are assuming they didn’t do something or did something wrong but that they are checking in to see if something was considered.
What are your feelings, ideas, and any cross-talk?
This is an unstructured round where everyone shares how they feel, any connected ideas, and can chat rapidly with each other and build on shared ideas.
The common emotional impact of this is:
Helps people feel seen and valued.
Invites everyone to speak up in a way that doesn’t single them out.
i. Re-statement of the proposal
What is your vote on it, using this Fist of Five voting system?
The voting system is:
5 - I like and want to be responsible for implementing the proposal.
4 - I like the proposal.
3 - I feel neutral about the proposal.
2 - I don’t like the proposal but don’t feel it’s a serious concern that needs discussion.
1 - I don’t like the proposal and want to discuss my questions and/or concerns more.
Fist - I want to block it from moving forward until my serious objections are sufficiently addressed.
Seriously objections mean you believe the proposal is harmful and not aligned with our values and shouldn’t happen and therefore, needs to be seriously reconsidered before moving forward with making a final decision.
The serious objections must be unpacked to determine if the objections are directly related to the proposal or something else. If it is directly related to the proposal, they must be addressed sufficiently before moving forward, as ultimately determined by 90% of the Zone 1 and 2. If there is an emotional charge to it, the person talks to the Emotional Support Provider.
Anybody can give a fist to stop the process from moving forward and is a check on the decision-making power of the proposer.
The common emotional impact of this is:
Helps people explicitly and quickly name what their position is and what response they want from the group, if any.
Replaces the frustrating silence that can be a common response to‘do we want to do this?’
Allows for degrees of agreement and dissent in a clear, useful way. People can agree without being asked to implement it. And people can disagree and not be asked to explain why if they recognize it’s more a persona or small issue without pretending they like the proposal.
Clarifies immediately who’s interested in implementing the plan. If no one is, that response is later explored.
Share your serious questions, concerns, and/or objections with detail if you gave a 1 or a fist.
The person who gave a 1 or a fist explains their position and their reasoning and kicks off a mini-decision-making process starting with an Exploratory Discussion.
Their position is explored until all perspectives have been heard and the underlying source of the position is discovered. If the source is related to the proposal, it will be addressed by proposal amendments. If it not related, it will be cared for either in the Collective Healing Circles and/or on their own.
If there’s an emotional charge or strong disagreement on the source, they have a conversation with the Emotional Support Provider to unpack it and decide how to move forward.
The common emotional impact of this is:
Normalizes dissent and publicly holds space for it and cares for it.
Separates out dissent from decision-making so it can just be explored and considered.
The fist gives a check to the proposer’s power to authorize decisions if there’s a serious objection.
Summary
How to Adopt Proposals
Everyone present briefly shares what they appreciated about the proposal, without any cross-talk.