SOS Q&A

Q: I am way beyond capacity already, and my capacity is reducing, and I am dropping lots of things. I need to hand over some, or all of what I do (or don’t do). I have found a couple of possible candidates, but my question to you is whether there is a right way to “shout out for help?” The people I am generally coming across don’t have the capacity for strategic thinking which is the principal skill needed in what I am doing, mingled with experience of how large groups organise using tech. How might I make that shout out?

A: If you are describing ongoing work that needs to be done, I’d suggest capturing that work in a mandate for a role, then proposing that role with that mandate as a role in your team (I think the tech team) and then if there’s no-one internally to fill it, then ask the coordinator of the Integration team (you can see their contact on the XR organism spreadsheet) and ask them to advertise for it/add it to the list of volunteers needed.

Q: does a proposal to create a new template role in a sub-circle (such as the meeting scheduler one that was created) need to be approved by the broader circle or just approved in the sub-circle?

A: When a role is created in a sub-circle, the broader circle doesn’t need to be notified or approve it; this is part of the autonomy and self-governing nature of circles, that circles can govern their own structure to do their work without needing to check with anyone else.

Q: Should we use Glass Frog for our live meetings?

A: You could use GF live for meetings although I suggest not because the XR UK self managing system (SOS) is a little different from Holacracy. We effectively operate our version using a googledoc to run the meetings in a way similar to how you’d run a Tactical or Governance meeting in GF. And there are some limitations to the free version, like we can’t access the meeting history so you’d probably still need to use googledocs.

Q: The affinity groups do not have a representation in the SOS, only people who take a role in a Working Group get a say on plans and strategy, right? So how do the other rebels get a voice? How do checks and balances work for them of they dislike the course a Working Group decided to take? How does power travel between the local anchor circle and the national one? through the wgs or through delegates of the local anchor circle?

In XR UK the Communities Circle https://app.glassfrog.com/circles/45322 (part of Movement Circle) has a mandate for connecting with and supporting local groups and there's various groups in the Communities circle which do that, so they have channels in through there.

There's also the suggestion in the Template Roles doc https://docs.google.com/document/d/1P0oRCNp8N-zBVbZ7t2lVL6I2biwqlxGL2vWdVIIOZ_o/edit that there's a Local Group Link role which connects from that national Working Group to local group members around the theme of that group. So for example the XR UK SOS team has a Local Group SOS Link role (which I think is now actually a team with reps from local groups on it who are interested in bringing the SOS into their local group) https://app.glassfrog.com/org/16070/roles/11808945 with a mandate for

• Sharing learnings and good practice about the Self-Organising System with XR Local Groups

• Creating a peer learning space for Local Group SOS advocates

• Supporting Local Group SOS advocates in implementing SOS in their Local Groups

The idea is that any national WG like M&M, Regen etc could have such a link role.

Q: If an internal co-ordinator was the person that a working group wanted to ask to step down because of the pieces in the criteria of being a member such as repeatedly breaking Principles & Values, how that would be possible since it’s the Internal Coordinator with the mandate to ask people to leave a group?

• The constitution says ‘Anyone can call for re-election of any coordinator role at any time’

• in re-election, if using the Integrative Election Process, the person who sees the coordinator was repeatedly breaking p’s and v’s could then object if that same person is nominated again

• A new coordinator could then ask the previous coordinator to leave the group