The word 'sociocracy' was coined by the author of the system to characterize his 'invention' or 'social construct' as something between autocracy (one person dictates it all) and democracy (one person, one vote).

He invented it as a specific solution to solve the problem of auto-determination of the employees to whom he intended to transfer the enterprise soon after he had inherited it from his father.

I cannot remember the author's name --I shall call him B-- although I met him personally more than once because I participated in a Thinking Tank he had created for outsiders to find (better) ways to transfer full entrepreneurial responsibility, during the phase he was in at that time. (appr. 1980). The project was than already running successfully for some 15-20 years. B. is a person of my age, born appr. 1930.

His business was a engineering contracting firm in Rotterdam, founded by his father, and specialising in the installation of electrical systems aboard ships. He took it over with appr 150 employees and, after some ups and (severe) downs, it counted appr 250 staff in 1980.

At that time, apart from the final transfer of entrepreneurial responsibility, two other problems were considered in the Thinking Tank.

Because of the success, he and staff members were more and more occupied with 'explaining the system' to other organisations wanting to apply it and using its know-how. There was also a need for more fundamental research as the concept was generalised and used for many other types of organisations. For that reason a separate entity was created for consulting, development and research. Of course, it also had to be organised along the 'sociocratric principles'.

B. believed that the final transfer of entrepreneurial responsibility could only be realised if a fundamentally different property construct would be developed. There would be no shareholders, only stakeholders. I know little about the legal aspects, but they found very interesting solutions. It became a sort of public entity without a classical owner but with a permanent group of stakeholders who took care for profit and continuity.

B. knew very well the failures of similar experiments of 'enlightened' manufacturers and capitalists of late 19th and early 20th century. He was also aware of the pitfalls the '68 revolution had fallen into when trying to work use open and unstructured discussion techniques in an effort to get away from (authoritarian) prejudice. Right from the start he tried to avoid the known traps and looked mainly for solutions in the joint decision making of the (sub)groups and the community as a whole. At first glance his solution in not revolutionary. He distinguished three levels of management decisions, each level making its own planning and decision followed by sending representatives to the higher level the coordinate decisions and putting them in another context.

Gradually they learned to apply certain rules to guarantee long term social coherence within the job (purely functional, minimally relying on outside relationships) and to guarantee an equal free flow of information, horizontally as well as up & down. The two most important rules/principles are:

1. Always have two representatives sent to the next level to ensure the transfer of different opinions. "Don't pretend homogeneity if there isn't"
2. Voting is replaced by "consensus". This issue is most crucial in long term mutual trust building and avoids 'political power games' well known from the late '68 discussions leading to institutionalisation and restriction of free observation of the environment.(George Lapassade, Groupes, Organisations et Institutions. Paris 1970(?)).

• that those opposing a proposal have to explain openly & honestly their doubts & disagreements and will be listened to in the same vein; and
• that the defenders of the minority's point of view accept, nevertheless, the mayority's decision. If there is only one Not Agree, the proposal can not be accepted.

It is in this field that both research and experience has created a large amount of (transferable) know how. Sociocracy creates and maintains an atmosphere of respect for minority views and its defenders, and the group as a whole can take responsibility not only for the subject matter but also for the people. More than the autocratic system, the creativity of all individuals is used, which leads to more 'fitness for survival', whereas the "one person, one vote"-system tends to conservatism and bureaucratism, finally isolating the organization from its environment. This also means its organisational death.

According to the principles of openness, the consulting branch publishes all reports and translations and makes them available at costprice. I don't know how they put that into practice since the Internet came into existence, but I could rapidly find out if I had the opportunity to surf the web for some time.

Yzerfontein, Wednesday 26 January 2000
Gerard van Eyk