Click here to read the introduction to the series of posts relating to Decision-making Structures.

“How do you make decisions here?” is one of the most commonly asked questions by guests on our introductory programmes. This frequency is perhaps because the appearance of community life often seems relatively harmonious and orderly to such an observer. This contrast with the hurry and aggression of commercial life, the deadness of bureaucratic existence, and the difficulties encountered in both ordinary social interaction and in modern political squabblings seems at first to be considerable. Indeed the truth is that the Community has found remarkable success in creating harmony within a wide range of cultural backgrounds.

Beneath all of this apparent tranquillity there are of course complex and thorny problems that have to be addressed, many of them concerned with issues of power and control. However, before we examine the difficulties that exist let us first take a look at some of the positive qualities and practices that have come to be.

An answer to the above question might include some of the following ideas:

1. Service – First and foremost all of the members of the Foundation are (ideally) people who joined the Community because they wanted to put service to God before their personal preferences and desires. All discussions therefore start from the premise that everyone involved has the interest of the whole at heart. In such a context there is little to be gained in the long term by someone attempting to put personal, departmental or a factional interest before this utilitarian ideal.
2. Attunement – all activities are carried out in an atmosphere which encourages more than a philosophical attachment to the ideal of service. A wide range of specific practices are constantly carried out which aim to actualise this ideal.
3. Management Structures – An attitude of collective endeavour is encouraged because the hierarchy of authority structures is relatively flat. There are only three identifiable levels – that of member[1], departmental focaliser or manager, and that of the Management Committee- see ‘Line Management’ diagram. Furthermore, because Community activities are much wider in scope than those of a business, an individual frequently finds that this morning’s departmental focaliser will be this afternoon’s foot soldier on the clean-up crew. Such changes tend to discourage managerial airs and graces.
4. Focalisation itself is not intended to be a line management function in the ordinary sense of the word. There are elements of authority that a focaliser carries but ideally this should be more because of the qualities the individual embodies than because the bureaucracy offers them a position of power.
5. Flexibility – A very large number of decisions need to be taken in everyday life in the Community. The first principle is to ensure that everyone who ought to be involved is involved. There is a high degree of cross-departmental collaboration. Furthermore, many decisions which might simply be forced through in other organisations are referred to some wider group, or given a further period of consideration if consensus cannot be reached.
6. Commitment – It takes time and effort to create an authentic sense of community. Neither the Foundation nor its associated endeavours are created to maximise profits, and while it may be that some of the practices widely used in the Community might be helpful to industry at large, there is an inevitable tension between effective participation and efficient business. Community activities tend to stress the former rather than the latter.

Perhaps this tension may recede in the world as it is clear that ‘efficient business practice’ is all too often a euphemism for producing short term gains at the expense of longer term economic and social sustainability. Note also however that Community life is not free from ordinary economic constraints, and that all organisations strive to find an appropriate balance between these two needs.

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[1] The concept of a ‘member of the Foundation’ is a very basic one, and it adequately and clearly described a certain cadre of people. However, as the Foundation is a charitable trust this ‘membership’ was purely a useful descriptive technique, not a legal term to describe a relationship to a co-operative or similar institution. Confusion between the two ideas is a classic case of an inability to distinguish the legal and administrative realms. At the time of writing the concept of ‘Foundation member’ is under review. If, as seems likely the term ceases to have a formal use, minor amendments will be required to the procedures described.