The Ojai Foundation :: Council

As Spiritual Practice

CORE VALUES

The following are examples of our core values and council-based governance process. This is also what we teach when doing organizational development consulting.

Circles (groups, teams, ensembles, etc) are "magical". They can have a potential, a synergy, a greater-than-the-sum-of-the-parts possibility, that is not predictable by simply adding up what we might know about each other and the past. Council is an especially effective process for getting at the potential inherent in any group.

Rather than focusing on "What's broken and who should fix it?" Council shifts the perspective to "What's possible and who cares?"

All major decisions for the organization are made in Council.

Our decision-making process is usually consensus-by-council. We rarely vote. Rather, for a given issue, we send the Talking Piece around the full Staff or Board circle as many times as necessary to gain a full sense, not only of what people think about an issue, but also how they feel about it, what they sense will be the long-range implications or impact of decisions, and what is the best thing to do.

While consensus decision-making often takes longer on the front end than a linear, top-down process, it tends not to have to be re-done again and again, as often happens where people feel left out of the process and are resentfully holding onto hidden or silent vetoes.

The best and most durable decisions are those that deal with any Shadow or hidden or unconscious agendas up front. Council is a powerful tool for creatively processing and integrating personal or group Shadow material.

"Opinion is experience robbed of its story." Rather than debating opinions, we favor sharing stories that reveal, through personal experience, a way to be, a course of action, a possible "compelling future".

Leadership is most effective when it's "shared leadership" - that is, a small team of two, three or four people, who share authority, creativity, decision-making, responsibility and accountability. ("None of us is as smart as all of us.")

Accountability is to the Circle (the whole Staff or Board or team), not to a "Boss" or senior manager.

Leadership is "servant leadership", where those empowered serve the circle or community, rather than vice versa. ("How can I help?" vs. "Do it this way!")

The job of the leaders is to empower the Circle; the job of the Circle is to empower its individual members, which includes its leaders.

Accountability is sharing the "account", or story, of what is happening, what needs to be done, and how it is being accomplished. It is ideally a "present tense" reporting, rather than after-the-fact. This way "failures" are identified sooner and faster, and course corrections can be inputted more quickly and with less loss of time and energy.

Staff members sit once a week in a council-based business meeting and twice a month in a more feeling-based, personal check-in council. This helps to more consciously balance personal and professional needs, individual and community needs.

Board meetings - usually one- or two-day meetings, two or three times a year - always begin with a personal check-in that takes perhaps an hour or so, to re-establish rapport and connection for the often complex and emotionally challenging business that follows, of running a community-based foundation. Complex or emotionally charged issues almost always call for a formal Council process.

>> Top of Page