One of the things that emerged during the emotional spring-cleaning, is that there is a frustration that lives in several people that there are differences in informal power between people in our group, and that that is not in line with our aspiration of being a collaborative group.
I don’t consider myself an expert, but I did study the functioning of collaborative groups quite a bit. What I am afraid of is that there are some misconceptions about what it means to work together as a collaborative group, and that this lack of a shared understanding may have been the cause of quite some frustrations.
With this post I would like to offer a couple of clarifications.
1. Some misconceptions
1. In a collaborative group all members must have equal influence
I found two remarkable quotes on this topic. The first comes from ‘Many Voices One Song’ (Ted Rau & Jerry Koch-Gonzalez, p. 5):
“We define equivalence as “everyone needs matter”, regardless of that person’s role or status. Everyone’s voice has equal value, but not everyone’s voice has equal influence.”
The second comes from ‘The Empowerment Manual’ (Starhawk, p. 64):
“Of course, in collaborative groups we want to hear everyone’s ideas. But we should be especially careful to listen to those who have made big contributions to the group.”
If your jaw just dropped, so did mine 
.
But I’m afraid they are right. In essence, working together as a collaborative group, means that you aspire to get rid of so-called “power-over”, which is the ability of one individual to control or dominate another person or group of people. Most so-called “teal” (collaborative) groups also aspire to making space for human beings as a whole, with all their quirks and emotions, in contrast to traditional workplaces, where we are expected to show up as a professional persona.
The idea of “horizontality” or “all being perfect equals” however, is not something I found in the books that I studied, neither do they seem realistic. There is a lot to be said about this topic, and I dearly recommend reading ‘The Empowerment Manual’ on that matter.
2. The Reef is sociocratic
It’s maybe a subtle difference, but in The Reef we chose to use as many sociocratic principles as possible, but we are not a sociocratic organisation. That is because the essential feature of sociocracy – the decentralisation of decision-making power down to the circles – is something we chose not to use.
If we would have done that, then all decisions about the building and financial matters would be made by the team members of the teams in charge, which given that we are spending our life-time savings, did not seem like an appropriate idea. Thanks to the introduction of a plenary meeting, which does not exist in sociocracy, we are de facto creating more space for all voices to be heard, including those who are doing less work.
Following a similar reasoning, we also decided to use consensus-based decision-making for heavy financial matters and decisions about membership. Here again, we are giving more power to individuals compared to when we would operate on a purely sociocratic model.
On the other side of the spectrum - and I’ll come back to this - what we have conveniently dropped from the sociocracy menu so far, is feedback and accountability.
3. Informal power is a bad thing
Starhawk disagrees (‘Empowerment Manual’, p. 49):
Understanding power-with and the variations of social power is key to making collaborative groups welcoming and effective. Conflicts around social power are also one of the key reasons groups break down. Collaborative groups often try to eliminate power-over and privilege. But when they mistake social power for coercive power, or fail to distinguish earned from unearned social power, they may actually undermine their members’ empowerment.
For if a group does not consciously acknowledge earned social power and decide how people should earn it and wield it, they may end up penalizing and driving away their strongest and most committed members. Such groups may be equal - but extremely unfair. If I were to write my own list of Proverbs of Power, here’s one that would be at the very top: Groups that refuse to let people earn social power inevitably favor those with unearned social power. The loudest, strongest, most educated or most charismatic get heard: those who do the actual work may be ignored.
What is important to understand is that in the absence of power-over, power is no longer a zero-sum game. The space is open and we strive to get to collective power and shared leadership.
4. Collaborative groups are emotionally more comfortable than traditional / hierarchical workplaces
This is a point that Ted Rau makes in his book ‘Collective Power’. In the first chapter, on what it takes from individuals to function in a self-managed group, he comes back several times on what he calls “ghosts from the past”: we continue to fight against power-over, even when we are no longer subject to it. It regularly happens that people go in a power-under stance, i.e. they take on the belief that they don’t have any power, and as result they behave either as a victim or as a rebel.
Robin Allison has a nice quote on this, in ‘Cohousing for Life’ (p. 248)
People inevitably bring their lifetime experiences of power and authority into new contexts. Some people are damaged by their experience of power-over and reject all leadership or bring a tendency to resist authority. In a group context it is important to become aware of attitudes to power, and part of the commitment to living in community is to be prepared to work on it. What is important is to grow an understanding of group dynamics, so we can work it out together, and not perpetuate the old in the new context."
Ted Rau moreover points out that it can be really scary to be a member of a self-organised group, because it requires taking up responsibility, both in terms of taking up tasks and in terms of using your voice to speak up in the interest of the group. In this regard he points to self-responsibility as an essential asset to be able to function in a self-managed group, with self-responsibility meaning the ability to be aware of where your own responsibility starts (i.e. carry out tasks and speak up), and where it ends (i.e. create space for others).
p. 44:
“The collective depends on individuals holding their boundaries and roles self-responsibly. Those are necessary conditions for healthy collectives. There are many methodologies that support personal agency and self-responsibility, such as different forms of communication, coaching and therapy modalities like Nonviolent Communication, clean language, or Acceptance and Commitment Therapy. Some of them serve to get in touch with our personal agency. Others help us hold our own needs, feelings and stories with a more healthy perspective. Yet, those are typically for individuals as a way to improve the relationship with oneself and one’s personal agency.”
In the context of our emotional spring-cleaning, this really brought home the sentence from ‘Cohousing for Life’ (Robin Allison) that we like to quote every once and a while (p. 8):
“There is a saying in the cohousing movement, that cohousing is the most expensive personal growth course you will ever do. And its true! Working together on a huge, complex, challenging project with a diverse range of individuals, with their own personal stressors and circumstances and varying degrees of self-awareness, can push buttons we didn’t know we had and requires us to bring as much patience, goodwill and generosity as we can muster.”
I sometimes refer to this in the public presentations, but it’s only now that I am really starting to grasp the extent of it (and even though sometimes it’s very painful, I’m still very grateful for it 
).
2. Balancing power and responsibility
All this of course doesn’t imply that there can’t be any problems around how power is distributed and exercised.
In this regard, ‘The Empowerment Manual’ has been a tremendous inspiration to me when I was drafting our Governance Document. For the sake of completeness, I am copy/pasting her conclusions from the chapter on responsibility and power:
Hallmarks of group sanity around power and responsibility: (p. 74)
A clear structure for making decisions and an agreed-upon process
Clear and transparent agreements about how people gain decision-making power
A clear way for people to take on tasks and responsibilities
Clear agreements about the scope of each member’s authority to meet responsibilities
Clear structures of accountability - who do people report back to? How, when and in what form is an accounting given?
A group culture of appreciation and thanks to those who make contributions and take on tasks
A culture of tending and mutual care for those holding responsibility
A fair and transparent system of rewards
Training and mentoring to help people step up to new responsibilities
When we were launching The Reef, based on the list of things that can go wrong in collaborative cohousing groups, I insisted that we have a governance document that addresses the points above. Imperfect as it may be, in combination with our commitment towards transparency and documentation, and our consistent use of rounds, I would personally find it a missed opportunity if all the things that we have put in place to maintain group sanity around power and responsibility would not be acknowledged.
That doesn’t mean of course that things can be improved or re-balanced, and in that context feedback and accountability to me is one of the things we could be doing better in our group. As Ted Rau writes in ‘Collective Power’ (p. 111)
“Self-managed organizations can be weak in how its members hold each other accountable. They either don’t clearly define responsibilities in the first place, or they don’t follow up when responsibilities aren’t met. While feedback is built into many systems, its effectiveness depends entirely on people’s willingness and ability to define clear responsibilities and give feedback.
