These are examples of common practices we use within Integration Station and in our collaborative projects with others. We are sharing them for inspiration and transparency. These are NOT a fixed method or recommendations for the best place to start. Every context is different and we hope that each group or community will discover what is most supportive for them through shared experiences, dialogue, and integration. We welcome feedback, questions, and ideas!
Core practices
- Stay connected. We check in often to care for the work and each other. We meet in ways that support living and evolving our values and practices, like nonviolence, systemic change, curiosity, vulnerability, and gifting. We invite and welcome observers.
- Get stuff done. We hold shared responsibility for our goals, tasks, and well-being of our ecosystem. We notice what is needed, take action, ask for help, and support others.
- Speak up. We share our experience, ideas, and concerns whenever it contributes to collaboration. When it’s difficult to do (or do with care), we name that and get support.
- Move together. We make decisions that integrate just enough considerations to care for purpose, trust, resources, and coherence. We nurture strong external support systems to help us notice and transform habits like giving up, ignoring input, or avoiding discomfort.
- Play and celebrate. We invite presence and joy into all that we do, with practices like appreciations, adding pictures of kittens, meditation, song circles, and dance parties.
- Act with care. Instead of creating many agreements, we commit to caring for each other and learning through action and dialogue. We trust that we are all doing our best. We add agreements in areas where we need structure to support this commitment.
Decision making agreements
We love getting things done! We want everyone to start, make, and lead decisions. We also want what we do to fit well together and work for everyone, so we have agreements about when to get input or agreement from others. Distributed leadership can get quite messy. To help us keep coherence and momentum, our stewards are responsible for decisions that have long-term impact on the whole collective.
How do I make decisions? What process do I use?
- If you’re new or prefer to keep it simple, just use Advice process. This means you get input from relevant people and then decide. You are not required to get agreement, and it’s helpful if you’re willing to integrate at least some input.
- If you need more structure or support, use the decision practices below, read the Decision methods overview, or just ask someone for help.
- If you’re a member of the collective, use the Integration Station commitments and agreements.
Regardless of how you make decisions, aim to integrate as many needs as possible, including your own. Use Integrative practices to compensate for access barriers like language, internalized disempowerment, social inequalities, and less experience.
These reflection questions might help:
“How can I contribute to our shared goals in ways that work for everyone and build trust?”
“How can I compensate for my blind spots or bias to support participation from people who are very different from me or experience more barriers?”
“What would effectively move our project forward while supporting everyone’s sense of mattering and belonging?”
| If I want to… | Examples | I use this process | And I inform people by |
|---|---|---|---|
| Do work on my own | Work on a task no one else is doing, draft new content | Act with care | Keeping the tracking list up to date, sharing in meetings |
| Make easy to undo local changes with low impacts | Schedule a play meeting, create a coworking space | Act with care or Advice Process | Connecting with relevant people as needed |
| Make harder to undo changes with more impact | Delete shared content, post on social media | Advice Process | Sharing in weekly meetings or in group chat |
| Publish new materials or update existing ones | Finish a design or principles list, update shared notes | ISC collaborative editing | Following our collaborative editing agreements |
| Facilitate decisions during a meeting | Lead an agenda item to agree on a proposal | ISC Integrative | Updating agenda, sharing proposals in advance |
| Make decisions or changes that affect most members | Change strategy, start a partnership, add agreement | Integrative (led by stewards) | Everyone participates, so they already know 🙂 |
| Escalate a disagreement | Revise a decision that I’m not willing to follow | Convergent Facilitation | Updating the team in every weekly meeting |
Decision methods overview: Deciders, Input Givers, and Integration
| Process name | Decider | Input givers | How much integration? |
|---|---|---|---|
| Act with care | The person wanting to take action or make a decision | None by default, add people as needed for support or more clarity about needs | Mostly intuitive and internal, using known and imagined needs |
| Advice process (AP) | Anyone willing to take responsibility and put energy into leadershipping | Anyone affected, needed for adoption, or with relevant experience; more if wanted | Chosen by the decider, based on input, potential impacts, and capacity |
| Integrative (collection of practices) | Could be anyone, often related to holding a function | Same as AP, plus Agreers: People or teams holding affected functions | For high-impact decisions: All member input, at least one attempt for other input |
| Collaborative editing | The previous author(s) or any steward willing to do integration | Anyone, see our content review and editing agreements for details | All input marked as “not safe to try*”, more if the decider is willing |
| Full Convergent Facilitation process | Decided as part of the CF process | All stakeholders or representation for them | All input is integrated (everyone needs to agree) |
* We define “Not safe to try” as “it would make it very difficult to continue our work or to be in integrity with our mission and values”
Quick reference: How to lead a decision during meetings
- Start with a proposal
- If you don’t have a proposal, collect input or do some brainstorming
- Check that the proposal has a decider or holder
- Round of clarifying questions (about the approach, not details or implementation)
- Check for capacity and willingness to implement (possibly later in process)
- Round of concerns and objections (prefer in headlines, if possible include underlying needs, threshold, and proposal for integration)
- Brief dialogue for integration if needed
- Check for remaining objections – if none, decided!
- For Advice Process decisions, the decider may still move forward with objections
Reflection questions for increasing choice
How much influence am I open to while doing integration of received input?
- Am I attuning to someone’s input to the point of losing connection to my own wisdom or what’s important to me?
- Am I confident to the point of not being open to other perspectives or the possibility that I am missing something?
- Am I closing myself to other people’s needs because I don’t think integration is possible or I find it stressful?
- Am I investing more energy than I think serves our purpose because I am worried about upsetting people or other relational consequences?
Photo credits: Four kittens on brown basket by Jari Hytönen on Unsplash | White and black cat by diego caro on Unsplash