I don’t think that is a practical framework for situations where people aren’t already very closely aligned. What happens when a few people are very vocal (and firm) in opposition to basically every change? Having dissenting views is valuable, but not when they have veto power. Additionally, I think that framework is vulnerable to what I refer to as “death by yes but” - when everyone is just piling on amendments and precursor conditions, oftentimes conflicting, that result in a decision taking months (maybe even years) to make or scuttle.

I’m basing these comments out of experience - one example is a workgroup/committee operating under a similar model that was completely unable to do anything due to decision paralysis. The committee grew significantly more effective when we reformed the decision making process to have a small group of owners to handle pitching and (potentially) implementing the decision, then had approval be a simple yes/no majority vote.

>> You could learn from consent based decision making, a hallmark of sociocratic worker coops that is underrated and can be applied elsewhere.

>> Hierarchy and coercion isn't necessary for avoiding decision paralysis in organizations.

> I don’t think that is a practical framework for situations where people aren’t already very closely aligned.

Putting aside the concept of Sociocracy for the purpose of discussing engineering team leadership philosophies, one which I have observed to be very effective when working with experts is Servant Leadership[0]. From the Wiki page:

  A servant leader shares power, puts the needs of the 
  employees first and helps people develop and perform as 
  highly as possible. Instead of the people working to serve 
  the leader, the leader exists to serve the people.

While Servant Leadership[0] might initially raise concerns resembling the problems you rightly identify with a sociocratic approach, it has the benefits of peer collaboration combined with accountability of the decisions made by leadership.

0 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Servant_leadership

Yes it only works when participants have a shared aim

In full sociocracy, it...

> honors the circle’s ability to freely make decisions within its domain. This is key for the organization to remain effective. But it comes at the cost of members not having “consent rights” to every decision the organization makes. Each member will only have those rights for the circles they are a part of.

So it's not necessary to allow people outside that working group to veto or require compulsory followup through objection

There's no perfect solution to organization, everything is a tradeoff. I've also been part of working groups (made of people whose job description is to manage the scope of changes they're proposing) where everyone and the workers impacted by the decisions are in agreement and no impact on cost etc., but the exec decides no change can be made due to personal preference despite disastrous consequence. Or where an exec who abstains from checking in on a working group's efforts nonetheless counters it with shifting and contradictory demands whenever it comes time to take action, requiring going back to the drawing board repeatedly until people simply give up or leave the organization. Or where the exec asks for more data for a proposal, and then doesn't evaluate the data once gathered, leaving no recourse but to give up or leave the organization. We all have stories like this. Hierarchical organizations are also susceptible to paralysis.

I've often taken inspiration from RFC 2418, "IETF Working Group Guidelines and Procedures" [1], a rare RFC that defines a human protocol ("rough consensus") rather than a technical one.

[1] https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc2418.html

Interesting. For that to work, though, it has to be true consent, not "it's the boss's idea and I don't dare to object out loud".

But I guess, if that's the environment you're in, then you're stuck with autocratic leadership (no matter what label it claims for itself), and your only choice is to leave or not.

You can also try to organize your peers in those environments (or even from the outside if so inclined)

It's not autocratic, it's not a form of government at all.

Each role is a module to take in inputs, process them, and produce outputs. it is effectively a program.

Define your roles, and expectations of each role, then run the program and edit as needed.

Right, and some people’s role is to organize people and orient the group’s efforts by taking in big-picture problems and outputting direction.

There’s rarely a single correct answer— lots of good solutions have trade-offs— but there are often various wrong answers. Do the best you can to avoid the wrong answers, and when you inevitably run into the business end of one of your trade-offs, take comfort in knowing the other good options probably also had trade-offs, and tell the smug know-it-alls to cram it.

People working effectively towards a non-optimal solution is far more useful than sitting around arguing about the best way to do it.