This page is a very early collaborative draft - it probably needs to be woven into the decision making policy. The scope is currently employees and Directors of Catalyst.

Question we’re seeking to answer

With so much work to do as a small team, but where the work is both emergent and interconnected, how can we best we step into leadership of our domains?

Context

We’re all deeply collaborative people, and will default to collaborating on things whether through workshops or async. We all value this collaborative mindset.

However, we also recognise that the need to keep momentum up combined with this collaborative default is leading to a situation where some/all of us are somethings/often/always working far too much, and risking burnout and potentially resentment about not being adequately remunerated for the work we do.

The consent process

We use the sociocratic consent process to make decisions. We have varying levels of experience of this process and have drawn on training as well as 121 support from our collaborators at XXX and XXX to develop our confidence. (see decision making policy, and handbook that XXX is developing)

We currently want to get better at understanding when to use the consent process rather than some other way of seeking input or simply moving ahead and informing people (in line with more traditional RACI models)

When we definitely need to use a consent process

• HR policies require the consent of those impacted (employees).
• Decisions to spend more than X require the consent of at least 2 Directors (check financial procedures manual)
• Decisions to spend more than X require the consent of at least 3/all Directors (check financial procedures manual)
• Requests from employees to draw from one of our communal pots require consent regardless of the level of spend. These are specifically for training and development, care, wellbeing and equipment (in line with our policies - training and development pending, care in the consent process currently).

All of the above proposals will tend to be run on slack. HR policies will sometimes go through an initial picture forming workshop before a policy is drawn up.

Considerations for when to use a consent process

• How confident am I that this is the right way forward?
• Do others have information that I don’t have, that is or could be relevant to whether this is the right way forward (rather than they just need to know about it)?
• Who is impacted by this decision? Have their needs been factored in? Do we know what those needs are? What is the best way to bring in those needs?
• What is feasible? It there a deadline that is out of our control, or a genuine need to move quickly? (being conscious of the sense of urgency trait [link])