Team Governance and Working Methods: getting started

Yes, that works for this particular decision :slight_smile:

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@reef-governance, shall we try to take the next step?

@Sophie_Beese: did you manage to make progress on the Team Leader thingy? If not, feel free to let me know eh, happy to help.

@ChrisM: did you manage to make progress on the Facilitation training thingy?

@ all: Shall we maybe plan another meeting, so that we can get concrete on nominating a Team Leader, planning the Facilitation training and the study group, and looking at how we can approach the written consent thingy? If yes, @Sophie_Beese: would you be willing to plan the meeting and set the agenda?

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Yes, Iā€™ve been (slowly) preparing something to show the training available (online and in Belgium) for all things Reef-related (sociocracy, cohousing, NVC, etc.), including facilitation. Although isnā€™t that something we discussed in the Team Facilitation and Conflict Management meeting? Anyway, Iā€™d quite like to discuss a couple of aspects of it before I put it out there for feedback and editions.

Yes, happy to move towards another meeting. This week coming, Iā€™m free on Wednesday evening after 7.30ā€¦
:slight_smile:

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Great! Thanks a lot!

The reason I thought we discussed it in the context of Team Governance is that for me this training is about much more than just facilitation. It goes through all the basic patterns of sociocracy, which is why I would feel more at ease if we could do this before the new people come in.

Very sorry, I am not very on top of things at the moment. Will look into what it takes to be a team leader on Wednesday - or is that too late?

Not sure if itā€™s useful to meet on the same day to nominate a leader but Iā€™d be available if that suits everybody else. @Sarah what about you?

Also available!

Great! What about a meeting (on Wednesday) at 8pm then? Should we try a call on Signal (Iā€™ve just created a governance group on there)?
As for the agenda (and I am only copying Lieā€™s suggestions)

  1. What does it take to be a team leader?
  2. Nominate a team leader
  3. Plan the facilitation training + study group
  4. How to approach written consent

Does that work? What did I forget?

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All good to meet at 8pm this evening. I can facilitate, to get some practice for tomorrowā€™s plenary meeting :slight_smile:

Happy to try on Signalā€¦

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On point 1 of the agenda, here is was I gathered from ā€œMany voices, one songā€:

circle leader

Underlying principle

  • Not coercive leadership
  • ā€œRunning partnerā€ who checks in on team members who have voluntarily committed to a task

Purpose of role

  • ā€œForward motionā€ of the circle as a whole: what needs to be done, who has agreed to do it?
  • Overview: Keep an eye on decisions to be made in the future
  • Part of double-linking circle to coordination group (top-down)

Tasks

  • Pays attention to operations of circle (What needs doing next, what needs adjustment?)
  • Pays attention to members of circle (Is everyone doing what they agreed to do? Is everyone coping?)
  • Reports from coordination group into circle (How to implement impulses from outside within the circle?)

Skills required

  • Proactive (donā€™t be too shy in this role)
  • Good feel for the group
  • good at holding people accountable
  • good at delegating
  • communication skills
  • pragmatism
  • reliability
  • availability

Term

?

selection process: understand (purpose + content of role) ā€“ explore (nomination round) ā€“ decide (select leader)

P.S.: 2 take-aways for me:
ā€œRemember that we are not looking for a perfect candidate and that many of us could fill this role.ā€ And be aware of (and, if possible, honest about) the emotions this process can trigger (personal preferences, feeling of not being recognised).

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Thanks a lot Sophie!

For the moment we have so many Teams that we canā€™t do double linking (i.e. sending a Delegate and a Team Leader to the Coordination Group). So on this point O would say a Team Leader is expected to communicate back and forth.

Hi all :slight_smile:
Iā€™ve started a document to make Sophieā€™s description available to all, so that they can easily use it as a starting point when selecting a leader for their team.
Iā€™m thinking we could have something similar for other roles? What do you think?
Also I feel like it might be good to have a section on the selection process on its own, as it is the same for all roles. We could detail how it goes a bit more?
I am not sure at all I have put it in the right place or with the right folder names, so feel free to rearrange as you see fit!
@Lee not sure if there is already something like that somewhere in our files? Let us know!

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Thanks Sarah!

Nope, not yet.

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@Sophie_Beese @Sarah

I canā€™t make the next meeting on 18 Octoberā€¦ could we change it to the 19th or 20th?

No worries - I canā€™t do the 19th but the 20th would work for me!

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Canā€™t really do the 20th :-/ unless we meet around 9, but thatā€™s a bit late probablyā€¦
My next availability is 21 or 22ā€¦ Then 27thā€¦

The 21st or 22nd work for me (not the 27though). Have a lovely Sunday :slight_smile:

New pitch : anyone interested in the evening of the 25th?

I donā€™t think our next meeting is particularly urgent if we have to push it forward a bit, but I also think we should keep it more or less monthly. If we canā€™t find an evening that works for all of us by the end of October, perhaps we could mix it up and have a brunch meeting somewhereā€¦ :slight_smile:

Cant do it on the 25th :frowning:
But yes to move that to a weekend! I actually find that less strenuous, and as we have such a wonderful team it doesnā€™t feel as much as as an actual meeting :slight_smile:
(Also shall we be moving this kind of intimate self congratulating messages and date searching out of the forum and onto private messages? :thinking: in case anybody needs to jump in on our conversation, then they donā€™t see all of this blaber! Just a thoughtā€¦)

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Hello @reef-governance,

If there is some time left, would you be willing to reflect together about a couple of things?

  • How to help Teams with the selection process / nomination of a Team Leader

  • How to nominate someone for Team Coordination

  • How to make all Reeflings familiar with the essentials of sociocracy

  • Ex post objections / ā€œno longer good enough, safe enough to tryā€: how do we deal with this?

  • Responsibility, accountability, feedback: what can we do to make this easier and better?

  • Copy/pasting the revised membership process into the Governance document (task)

  • Decision log:

    • Should we number our decisions and proposals so itā€™s easier to keep the overview?
    • Can someone take over the task of keeping the decision log up-to-date?
  • Minutes:

    • Plenary meeting: should we pay more attention to them?
    • Teams: should they be on Nextcloud or on Edgeryders?
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@Lee - are these in order of importance? Because I doubt weā€™ll have time to talk about all of themā€¦

At the last meeting, we talked about moving forward on some of the points above, such as sociocracy training and Team leader selection. We also agreed to all look into the concept/process of written consent, in the interest of putting a proposal together, which we thought would take up quite a bit of time at the next meeting. And we agreed to start thinking about and researching with regard to the future of the team organigram.

If the general feeling is that the written consent and the team organigram are less important than some of the points above, we can adjust the focus for the next meeting. On that note, who is responsible for setting the agenda?

Finally, Iā€™m happy to facilitate, in order to get more practice in, but also more than happy for someone else to do it if they would like to start developing their own facilitation skillsā€¦ :slight_smile:

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