Tips & tricks for (A)organizations – Page 2 – Collecting good practices for organizations of peers

2021-03-13

Consensus definitions

Starting from almost the worst, from a dehumanized, mammoth organization, made up of officials, taking into account that it is a technical agreement between hostile parties in the world.

The united nations, define this, as Consensus regarding indigenous peoples.

https://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Issues/IPeoples/FreePriorandInformedConsent.pdf

Considering that the declaration comes after 400 years of slavery and exploitation, they define what consent means at a minimum:

Asking permission from native/indigenous peoples, with the stipulations that it be:

* given FREELY, not coerced, blackmailed or altered.

* PRIOR, first I ask you to do things, then I do them.

* INFORMED, you are entitled to all the information you need to understand the application and evaluate it.

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This got me thinking about a better articulated definition of consensus that came from below, the FRIE consensus.

Free, freely given

Revocable, revocable

Informed, informed

Entusiastic, enthusiastic

Found in the American fanzine: Meeting for Group Health. Paper only, sorry.

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Tied to technologies the reflection of the Brazilian feminists of Codingrights:

https://codingrights.org/docs/ConsentToOurDataBodies.pdf

on Pages 24 and 25, offer a definition of consent that they claim is taken into account, and not replaced, by buttons: AGREE.

1) active

2) withdrawable

3) clear

4) informed

5) specific and non-transferable

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Another resource I came across to talk about consent, this video:

Consent Explained with Tea

ecco da dove è iniziato: https://web.archive.org/web/20150313233048/http://www.rockstardinosaurpirateprincess.com/2015/03/02/consent-not-actually-that-complicated/

2021-03-13

Active Listen

I find this page by Marinella Sclavi very interesting to share:

The seven rules of the art of listening

by Marianella Sclavi

1
Don’t be in a hurry to come to conclusions.
Conclusions are the most ephemeral part of research.
2
What you see depends on the perspective you are in.
To be able to see your perspective, you have to change your perspective.
3
If you want to understand what someone else is saying, you must assume they are right and ask them to help you understand how and why.
4
Emotions are vital cognitive tools if you can understand their language. They don’t inform you about what you see, but how you look.
Their code is relational and analogical.
5
A good listener is an explorer of possible worlds.
The most important signals for him are those that present themselves to consciousness as both negligible and annoying, marginal and irritating because they are incongruent with his own certainties.
6
A good listener welcomes the paradoxes of thought and communication.
He faces disagreements as opportunities to practice in a field he is passionate about: creative conflict management.
7
To become proficient in the art of listening, you must adopt a humorous methodology.
But when you’ve learned to listen, the humor comes with it.

Here’s the library they provide: https://www.ascoltoattivo.net/bibliografia/#biblioteca

2021-01-202021-01-20

“Structural Conflict” — And Six Ways to Reduce It

Extract from:

Creating a Life Together Practical Tools to Grow Ecovillages and Intentional Communities – Diana Leaves

Here: https://library.uniteddiversity.coop/Ecovillages_and_Low_Impact_Development/Creating_a_Life_Together-Practical_Tools_to_Grow_Ecovillages_and_Intentional_Communities.pdf

1. Identify your community vision and create vision documents

2. Choose a fair, participatory decision-making process appropriate for your group. And if you choose consensus, get trained in it.

3. Make clear agreements — in writing. (This includes choosing an appropriate legal entity for owning land together)

4. Learn good communication and group process skills. Make clear communication and resolving conflicts a priority.

5. In choosing cofounders and new members, select for emotional maturity.

6. Learn the head skills and heart skills you need to know.

Community founders must cultivate both heart skills and head skills.. This means learning how to make fair, participatory group decisions; how to speak from the heart; how to face conflict when it arises and deal with it constructively; and how to make cooperative decisions and craft fair agreements. It means learning how to create budgets, timelines, and strategic plans; and how to evaluate legal entities for land ownership or business or educational activities. It means learning the real estate market in your desired area,local zoning regulations, and, if needed, how to secure loans with reasonable terms. It means learning how to structure healthy and affordable internal community finances. It means learning about site planning and land development. It means doing all this with a sense of connection and shared adventure. Plunging into the land-search process or trying to raise money without first understanding these interrelated areas is a sure invitation to trouble.

Community founders tend to be specialists, but in fact they must be generalists. I’ve seen founders with spiritual ideals and compelling visions flounder and sink because they have no idea how to conduct a land search or negotiate a bank loan. I’ve seen founders with plenty of technical or business savvy — folks able to build a nifty composting toilet or craft a solid strategic plan — who didn’t know the first thing about how to speak honestly and from the heart to another human being. And I’ve seen sensitive spiritual folks as well as type-A “get-the-job-done” folks crash and burn the first time they encountered any real conflict.

2020-10-232020-10-23

Actions and priority matrix

This matrix id usefull to organize the stuff to do alone or in group and come from a military strategy. It’ s famous with the name of Eisenhover’s matrix.

I dont like that man, but I find the matrix usefull to think cleaner and act faster and in group.

It’s also really simple:

A way to use it in a group is using to create the list of the day of the topics to speak in a assembly. If the meeting is really full of topics, this matrix helps group to decide what speak in the plenary assembly and what delegate to sub group, these subgroups managing urgent topics will have autonomy to decide and do. with the agreement to do a report to the central assembly and taking their responsability about the topic.

2020-09-14

Conflicts in our Groups: A guide for grassroots activists

source: https://www.seedsforchange.org.uk/conflictbooklet.pdf

You can also download from here: conflictbooklet

Every group and relationship experiences conflict, regardless of whether we are trying to bring about an anarchist revolution or play dominoes on the street. It’s simply part of being human, it’s also a particular feature of living in a world which is more mobile. Humans used to live in largely homogeneous groups, whereas today many different world-views and cultures are present in our communities. However, we haven’t yet developed the skills to successfully hold this diversity. Add to this the fact that you probably grew up in a capitalist society, where you were taught that to do well, or even just survive, you need to behave competitively. Phew! So it’s really no surprise that so many of us struggle to collaborate with each other to find a healthy way through conflict. Conflict is bound to happen while we un-learn old habits, and develop new skills and awareness to work co-operatively and challenge oppression. This guide is aimed at people and groups working for social change who want to develop an understanding of conflict and how to deal with it. There are sections on what conflict is,the benefits of addressing it, and tools to work though conflict and maintain healthy and effective social change groups.Throughout the guide you’ll find short exercises to help you learn skills and tools. The more involved we are with our own learning, the deeper the learning goes. So if you really want to learn this stuff, give yourself the time to try out the exercises.

Introduction and Contents

1. What is conflict and why deal with it?

2. Why conflict happens in social change groups

3. Understanding conflict

4. Responding to Conflict

5. Good communication

6. Taking effective action to deal with conflict in your group

7. Resources

2020-08-042020-08-05

Ruoli e mansioni

From MAG6 di Bologna (Mutua AutoGestione mag6.it/)

IT:

https://campiaperti.tetaneutral.net/s/YtkRbCzrYKeSsLm

https://campiaperti.tetaneutral.net/s/M29x2yXprcZMEan

Only 4 precautions:

0) must not exceed page A4 body 10

1) is that it will be filled in by the people taking the task and not by the others in the group. in the sense that the roles must be comfortable, because they are the shoes with which the group walks. and therefore when taking a job it is recommended to self-describe it according to the possibilities.

2) that roles and tasks should never be tackled alone, because unforeseen emergencies occur and our life cannot be crushed, but neither can we cripple a group.

3) decide immediately, when the review of the roles / tasks will take place, to adjust them, improve them, make them more functional to everything and rotate them to strengthen everything and especially the group.

This is the web english version:

Role description

1	Role
2	Primary task max 3 lines, why does this organ exist? what is the ultimate goal?
3	Main functions what does it do? What are the processes for which you are responsible? Who takes responsibility for achieving the primary purpose?
4	Fundamental organizational relationships which functions provide that: .. you give / ask for an account? .. what you delegate? .. what it checks? .. etc. With which subjects?
5	External Relations like internal relationships questions
6	Necessary and useful skills and competences what are the things that help to live this role well? It is not said that you already own them but you are committed / aspiring to have them, empower them. Example: evaluate a lot of point of views, stand big responsability, listen the others, …
7	Note Data, next review of this role

2020-08-01

Power, Privilege and Rank

Fonte: https://www.zegg-forum.org/images/PDF/Texte-Englisch/Rank-short.pdf

NOTE: not stop you reading at C, is really more scientific of what seems there.

Power, Privilege and Rank

In order to understand power more deeply, it is important to explore the factors and privilegesthat allow us to lay claim to power. Mindell (1995) provides a useful map for exploring thefactors leading to power. These factors can be considered as privileges. He maps theseprivileges according to a ranking system. He defines rank as the “sum of a person’s privileges”(1995, p.28) and sees it as a “conscious or unconscious, social or personal ability or powerarising from culture, community support, personal psychology or spiritual power.” (1995, p.42)Depending on your position relative to others, you might have higher or lower rank on anattribute. The more rank you have, the more access you have to privilege and power in this area.

Rank is not always earned. The rank of being white in South Africa was an unearned privilegethat I was not always aware of, but from which I benefited greatly and which assisted me indeveloping other rank benefits such as education and greater material comforts. Frequently,having rank in some areas allows the easier development of rank in other areas. The inverse can also be true. When we have rank in one particular area we might tend to rely on this rankand so not develop in other areas.

Categories of Rank

a. Social Rank

This form of rank is the ranking bestowed by the culture and society we live in. It embracesthe value system as well as the biases and prejudices of the mainstream society, andbestows more privileges to some people and less to others.

b.Psychological Rank

Psychological rank occurs when you have developed internal resources and abilities so thatyou have greater personal comfort and ease in addressing challenging situations.

•This development might arise from personal psychological work where a greater familiaritywith yourself in difficult life challenges occurs.

•Psychological rank might also arise in learning skills to deal with having lower social rankand managing in the world under this condition.

c. Spiritual RankSpiritual rank comes from a relationship to something divine or transcendent–gods,goddesses or spirits. It can occur naturally through personal spiritual training, or as a result ofa reaction to having lesser social and psychological rank. It does not necessarily arise fromreligious practice or training, but rather from a connection to a divine or transcendental statewhich creates a detachment and experience of freedom outside of the wheel of ordinary life.

d. contextual rank

Each community or group has its own value system. Rank in a local context comes fromhaving those qualities that have currency in the community. In many contexts, being popular,well-connected, an insider or old-timer gives one local rank. e. Internal rankingEffects of oppression are not only external but also change our inner landscape. We mightvalue certain qualities or tendencies more then others. Outer oppression can lead tointernalized oppression. We have a form of inner ranking between different parts of us thatoften represents a set of mainstream values.

Recognizing and Using Rank and Power

Eldership and the Use of Rank

Rank, privilege and power exist. Attempts by some to eliminate a ranking system and therebyreduce power and its abuses has not been successful. We live in a world where rank isevident and is in use all the time. The challenge we have is to use the rank we have well. Theeffective use of rank has the potential to transform ourselves and those around us. Even ifdone on a small scale, using rank well changes the world in which we live.

Recognizing Rank

Mindell states that rank is a drug. The more you have, the less aware you are of how it effectsothers negatively. When we use it poorly, we suffer, our relationships with others suffer andwe create an unhappy world around us. Recognizing that we have rank might sound simple,but it is a challenging process. Most of us recognize the places where we might not haverank. The misuse of rank results in difficult relationship interactions and conflicts, particularly withthose who do not have this rank and are suffering through our unconscious use of rank overthem. Frequently those who are in less powerful positions know more about who has rankand the effects of rank and power than those who wield this rank.

Using Rank

Once we recognize rank we are in a much easier place to use it consciously, with wisdom andcare for ourselves and others. The use and misuse of rank is often extremely subtle and ouropenness to those who might be subjected to it and their feedback is important.Effective use of social rank: There are many examples of people who have used social rankwisely. Nelson Mandela (1994a) is a good current example.Effective use of spiritual rank: The life of Martin Luther King Jr. (1998) is a testament to theeffective use of spiritual rank. In a period in the history of the United States where people ofcolor were denied equal rights, he focused not only on the suffering of his people, the AfricanAmerican people, but on his vision of equality for all.

www.zegg-forum.org

2020-02-12