GOVERNANCE

“If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.”
– Anonymous

A healthy community has a clear and equitable process for making decisions together. This “governance process” is most effective when built on a strong foundation of healthy culture and communication practices within the community. Beyond just coliving, we believe developing a muscle for shared decision-making is important for being effective in any group setting over the course of one’s life. Over the years, we have learned some great approaches to efficiently and effectively making decisions as a community. In this guide, we will share with you key principles, processes, and tools that we’ve found useful.

A word of caution: while it is vital to have clear agreements and an effective process for decision-making, agreements should not and cannot replace a foundation of a healthy culture, good relationships and trust between housemates. An overreliance on rules can often obscure deeper underlying issues – whether it be an interpersonal conflict, a difference in vision for the community, or a lack of relationship between housemates. In addition, there are too many gray areas to have a rule for everything. Thus, it is important to strike a balance between rules and culture.

Governance Fly-Over

In this section, we will provide an overview of the various components of a governance system and process, in the context of community living. In the following section, we will discuss recommended “default settings” for governance as a great starting point for a new community, to be evolved over time to better serve the unique needs of your community. 

1) Kinds of Decisions:

There are different kinds of decisions to make while living in community. Here are some typical examples.  

• Updating house rules and agreements (e.g. cleanliness agreements, quiet hours, meeting schedules and expectations, etc.)
• Updating house systems and key processes (e.g. chores, food system, etc.)
• Selecting a new house mate when someone moves out
• Deciding what to use using collective funds (food, soap, technology upgrades, etc.)
• Decisions on how residents can use common space (e.g. events, community dinners, etc.)

2)  Ways to Reach Decision:

There are different ways to arrive at these decisions. Here is a short description of the different formats. 

• Majority or Supermajority – proposals pass with a vote of at least half or more (majority) or a supermajority majority (e.g. ⅔, ¾, everyone except 2). This approach optimizes for the ease of group decision-making. The downside is that often a few people can be very unhappy or sidelined with certain decisions.

• Unanimous – everyone must vote “yes” to pass a proposal. This approach optimizes for full group buy-in and alignment. The downside is that group decisions become very challenging, time-intensive, and in some cases never reach an impasse.

• Consensus – this is what most communities use for the majority of group decisions. It is often confused with unanimous voting. In consensus, not everyone has to agree to a decision as long as no one rejects it.  “I can live with that” becomes the mantra of this process. Anyone can “veto” or “block” a particular proposal, but blocking decisions has to be evidence-based rather than coming from pure opinion (e.g. “I don’t like the new food proposal because it doubles our cost”, not “I just really don’t like sharing food”). Blocking is seen as a big deal and rarely used. If done too often, it also carries a social cost. Rather, what usually happens is that the group works to unearth and address key issues by modifying any particular proposals. This process has an emphasis on group cohesion and goodwill. It balances the need to make decisions efficiently with the need for everyone to have input and buy-in. 

3)  Containers of Decision-Making:

We’ve talked about the kinds of decisions that can be made and different ways of reaching these decisions. Now, let’s look at some of the different containers in which decisions are made.

• House Meetings
  • This is the backbone of coliving house governance, and the way that many decisions get made. It’s best reserved for the most important decisions and the ones that require the most discourse and dialogue. This typically includes changing any house systems, updating key policies and agreements, and deciding on new housemates. 
  • For frequency, we recommend either monthly or biweekly meetings.
    • In our experience, weekly meetings begin to feel like a burden and have much lower levels of attendance. 
    • As much as possible, try to send out agendas and proposals before each meeting! (See “The House Meeting” section later in this guide). 
  • Keep in mind that if the only time you get together as a house is for serious discourse, it can be kind of a buzz-kill for the community. Try to balance meetings with logistics + fun. i.e. Two house meetings a month: one for logistics, one for community / connection discussions and activities.

• Pods / Committees / Task Forces
  • These are break-out groups that exist for a specific purpose and/or timeframe. This is a great way to share leadership and limit the energy drain of having every resident be involved in every decision. 
  • Typically, a task force will develop a proposal on their own (usually between meetings) and then bring it back to the group to solicit feedback. In some cases, they are empowered to make the final decision themselves after feedback; this avoids stalemates and relies on sufficient trust within the group. In other cases, they bring a well thought-out proposal to the group for final feedback and decision. 
  • Task forces are often comprised of the people who are most passionate and/or knowledgeable on the item (many items only have a few people who truly care). Task forces can be “disappearing” as well – meaning they have a finite purpose that when complete, the task force is dissolved (e.g. come up with a new chore system).

• Asynchronous Decision-making (i.e. Slack)
  • Many decisions can be made asynchronously, meaning without everyone having to be in the same place at the same time. Pushing more decisions to be asynchronous (especially smaller ones) facilitates the house’s ability to make decisions quickly, while preserving in-person meetings for more involved decisions, dialogs, and relationship-building. Our homes mostly use Slack for these types of decisions, making proposals and then using “thumbs up / down” voting. 
  • Keep in mind that if things get heated on Slack and there are more questions that votes, this item is likely best added to the upcoming in-person house meeting’s agenda

4)  Governance Systems:

Below are several governance systems that can be mixed and matched to create a custom governance process:

• Consensus – The classic governance model for community. All major decisions are made through a group meeting process that allows all members input and veto power. However, “vetos” are rarely used, and members strive to build consensus by hearing all concerns and updating proposals accordingly. The upside is every decision must be supported by all members. The downsides are long meetings, slow decision-making, and watered-down proposals.
• Pod-acrocy – Pioneered by the Canopy, this model involved creating permanent “pods” for the major decision areas of the house (food, finances, events, furniture, etc). These dedicated task forces “own” their domain, soliciting input and making proposals to the house. House meetings often cycle through the pods, with each pod following the structure of: 1) what’s happened? 2) what’s going to happen? 3) what hurdles exist? and 4) what feedback do they need from the group?
• Do-ocracy – A libertarian, action-oriented approach. Individuals are empowered to take actions without buy-in from others so long as it is reversible (e.g. move a couch to another room, but not sell a couch) and doesn’t obviously harm others. However, they need to communicate what they’re planning to do before they do it, so anyone with a major objection or feedback can chime in. This empowers people with vision and initiative to be in action and avoid timely, energy-sucking governance processes. Note: Do-ocracy rarely works as a sole governance model, but can work well in certain domains and be paired with a consensus-based process (see Embassy SF Do-ocracy Guide)
• Adhocracy – Minimal structure with as-needed formation of meetings and committees (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adhocracy). Typically not that successful in coliving spaces, but is often defaulted to in busy times.

House Agreements

We do not go in-depth on House Agreements in this document, but these are a vital aspect of a smooth-running coliving house.  This is for getting on the page as residents and avoiding potential points of conflict, as well as informing guests and new residents joining the space.  Please visit the section on House Agreements that goes more in depth to the kinds of questions to consider how you will co-live with your house mates.