Democracy improv is a method of spontaneous coordination for leaderless collectives.
The process of democracy improv is a Q&A cycle where group members spontaneously ask a question, generate a list of possible answers, vote on the final answer, accept and commit to the result.
This requires some kind of voting system like Decisive Team that allows members to rapidly ask questions, add options, vote, and see the results.
As with comedy improv, the main rule is “yes, and” or acceptance + commitment. When a decision is made, everyone accepts it and commits to it. This rule is the coordinating factor that connects the top-down process of group decision-making with the bottom-up process of spontaneous movement.
Because acceptance of decisions is crucial for democracy improv to work, it makes sense to use a voting method that maximizes acceptance. Approval voting does exactly that. The very word “approval” is synonymous with acceptance. With approval voting, you vote for all options that you would accept, not just the one option you would most prefer. This makes it much easier for groups to arrive at decisions that everyone finds acceptable.
Decisive Team is an example of a voting tool that uses approval voting.
Commitment is the glue that holds the group together and enables the whole to become greater than the sum of its parts. Commitment creates stability and cohesion that allows the group as a whole to support its individual members more than those members could as separate individuals. Commitment creates a self-reinforcing feedback loop where the more that individuals commit, the more stable and coordinated the group becomes, and the more stable and coordinated the group becomes, the easier it becomes for individuals to commit. This is where the power comes from.
While acceptance and commitment are essential for democracy improv to work, it’s also important to guard against groupthink and mob mentality by maintaining critical thinking. You don’t want to become a lemming and follow the group off a cliff. Sometimes the right thing to do is to deviate from the group. In the long run, this is actually in the group’s best interest anyway (assuming that deviance is chosen in good faith). Knowing that your fellow group members are thinking critically and not just blindly following along actually makes it easier to trust the group overall.
Check out Decisive Team, a tool for fast group decision-making that uses approval voting.
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