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Policy & Operations

Different Kinds of Policies

Table 1

Table 1

Column 1

Column 2

AgreementsWhat is allowed, what isn’t?

A membership policy that defines what the rights and responsibilities are of specific membership categories A compensation policy that defines criteria and remuneration tiers.

Workflow/proceduresWhat are the steps to do X?

A workflow that lays out how to get reimbursed for travel expensesA workflow that defines the off-boarding of a member.

RolesWho does what?

Content partnership coordinator (= defining that for all content partnerships, this person is the point person)Training schedulers (= defining that this person takes care of scheduling for all training offerings)

There are no rows in this table

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Roles and the operational decisions their holders make are a key to speeding things up. We don’t have to talk about everything anymore. The circle defines the role once and then only hears a quick report from the role holder from time to time. Maybe the role holder asks for feedback or brings a policy question to the circle if there is something that needs to be addressed. But mostly, they’re just taking care of things and we can all just get back to work. This equates to the difference between one task and a role, which is ongoing and also typically a bigger cluster of tasks.

Each of these kinds of policies has operational decisions as counterparts. To illustrate the difference again, let’s contrast different scenarios:

Table 2

Table 2

Column 1

Column 2

Column 3

Operational decision:

Policy decision:

What is allowed, what isn’t?

Can Scilla have her private birthday party in the community room next week?

In general, can members use the community room for private parties?

What are the steps to do X?

How should we go about approving and publishing this article this time?

Workflow defining the steps of approving and publishing an article on the blog

Who does what?

Task: Who will call the town office before our next meeting to ask this question?

Role: Who will serve as point person to the town office for this coming year/in this project?

There are no rows in this table

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The same is true on a process level, by the way, when the decision affects how we run our circle, not how we do our work.The same is true on a process level, by the way, when the decision affects how we run our circle, not how we do our work.

Table 3

Table 3

Column 1

Column 2

Column 3

Operational decision:

Policy decision:

What is allowed, what isn’t?

Is Jeff allowed access the notes of the meeting he is observing next week? How do we make this decision?

Are our circle notes open to people from outside of the organization? What’s our default decision-making method?

What are the steps to do X?

Could XY be on our next agenda?

How do we plan our agendas, and how do we prioritize agenda items?

Who does what?

Who facilitates today’s meeting? Who is taking notes today?

What kinds of roles do we have, what do they entail, and who serves in them for this term?

There are no rows in this table

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Working with Feedback

Before a decision is made, and while it’s in effect, feedback is useful on operational and on policy decisions. How intentional we will be in gathering feedback will depend on the scope of the decision. If a circle/role makes decisions, they will get feedback as they see fit to make a good decision. (Some people call this the advice process; in sociocracy, it’s already part of the distinction between decision-making and feedback, and the general expectation to get appropriate feedback before making a decision.)

We might change existing decisions. Thinking back to the traffic metaphor, let’s imagine a 120 km/h zone where a lot of accidents happen. If we notice that, we might decide to turn it into a 90 km/h zone or take other measures that will address the issue.

In the same way, we need to pay attention to whether our policies are working. To make sure we remember to evaluate our policies, they always come with a term that triggers an evaluation date so the policy can be reviewed.

Sometimes the policy is still good, then we just approve it with a new term.

Sometimes we notice we haven’t actually been following policy and then we either re-phrase the policy to capture our actual practice, or we hold ourselves more accountable to our own agreements.

Sometimes we realize a policy wasn’t good enough. Then we improve it until we can approve it with a new term.

Want to read more about intentional feedback in organizations?

Check out this article⁠

by Ted Rau.

Greyzone Cases

Short time frames

Sometimes we make policy decisions for a very short period, in particular when we want a short feedback cycle. For example, a circle I am in just recently made a book translation workflow decision with a term of 1x use of the workflow. Is this an operational decision because it only applies to one instance? Although it looks like one, the way it’s worded is as a policy – “every time we translate a book…” so while we might review it after one instance, the intention is to use it beyond that in a potentially reviewed form.

Practices

An interesting topic is what happens if separate, individual operational decisions form a pattern: this decision here and that decision there, or somewhat unintentionally making similar choices again and again. I call those practices or habits. Those aren’t bad – we don’t want to sit down and write a workflow for everything we do. If something is working without being written down, great! For example, we don’t want to make a policy on when/how people take their lunch break if their lunch behavior doesn’t create any issues. There are a few tricky things about practices though. Practices can be hard to acquire for new members because they might be taken for granted. They can also be unhealthy, and often, they’re unacknowledged. For example, if we make 5 hiring decisions independently of each other but they’re all male hires, this might be a coincidence, or it might be a pattern.

When we observe a pattern, we can talk about it and see whether we think there’s something deeper going on that we want to do something about.

Let’s look at an example. We had a situation once of two circles. One circle was only men and the other circle was only women.

We could give feedback and let both circles know what we observed. We’d need to trust that they will do with the feedback whatever they do with it.

We could make an operational decision, for example, that the next addition to the circle has to be of another gender. This would be a one-time decision only applying to that one next member.

We could make a policy decision, for example, that every circle has to have at least ⅓ of any gender and start to enforce it.

Each of those decisions is a valid decision, and it depends on the context

Being in Choice

For every decision, a circle will have the choice – do we build more structure, or do we stay vague? A mix of operational and policy decisions over time will turn the dial a little bit towards more structure, or towards less structure. Neither is right or wrong – it’s about finding a healthy range.

Let’s look at an example again. Here’s how an organization might regulate purchasing decisions:

Organization A: everyone can spend money. Whether someone wants to buy an airplane ticket or a new computer or a new hire, it’s allowed. Every member of the organization has a company credit card. People might get feedback before making a purchase but there’s no rule on that.

Organization B: There’s a detailed ruleset on what purchases are allowed (agreements). Only very few people (roles) can make spending decisions, and there are workflows that define how spending decisions are made.

For each topic, we can decide how much we define and structure, and each organization will answer it a bit differently, and it might change over time. We can notice whether we’re in a healthy range.

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If there are too many operational decisions, but not enough policy decisions:

many moving parts; items are dropped; and/or people get anxious

leaders are expected to make a lot of decisions because there’s not enough structure to cover making them elsewhere

team members experience decision fatigue

inaction because of not enough clarity and predictability

people keep asking for the bigger frame/rules/strategy.

If we’re leaning too much towards policy decisions and overuse policy as a tool:

lots of time discussing policies we rarely use or on marginal issues

we base policies on a thin base of experience

we make policies but don’t stick to them

people feel stifled and try to find ways around the policies

Healthy balance:

There is flow because we have enough boundaries to guide our operations but few enough rules not to inhibit them.

People feel good about having a choice but they also feel safely held within a web of clarity.

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Screen Shot 2023-04-10 at 6.01.02 PM.png

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It’s not efficient to be all about rules. But it’s also not efficient to never make rules.

Exit with

⌘↩

Before solving a problem, ask yourself how significant the problem is. Policy is an excellent solution but not the only one. For example, we might notice that we already have a solution, and we just need to enforce it.

We can choose to let it be.

If there is an existing policy, we decide to enforce it.

We can give feedback.

Or we can make an operational decision.

Or we can make policy.

You don’t want an organization that is like car traffic with zero rules and lots of need to talk. But you also don’t want an organization where everyone is like a cog in a big machine. Find balance – the trick is to know both and use them as needed, and adjust the ratio as needed.

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