At the end of my life, I want to look back and say I lived a whole life. You can experience what this world has to offer —all of its community, culture, and nature—and, hand on heart, say, “I’ve also been able to give back some of those things in return”.

A cohousing community can help you design and achieve this around what is important to you and the life you want to live. It is essential to start with you.

A community is where you can be your whole self without fear of judgement. A community is where you can share your gifts and receive them from others. A community is where people create change together and support each other through tough times. Finally, a community is where people find friends who are there for them no matter what life brings.

Your gift

• You’re reading this, so you probably want to know the most important thing in life. The first thing I want to tell you is that it has nothing to do with money or possessions.
• Those things can be nice, but they aren’t a big deal in the grand scheme. What matters most is what makes your heart sing: what makes you feel alive? What do you love to do? What is your passion? What makes you happy?
• Don’t get me wrong—your gift isn’t something magical that will make everything perfect when it comes to being human. But what’s important here is that when we use our gifts well (and sometimes even when we don’t), we’re also helping others find their gifts!
• Your skills and what you are good at might be just what your neighbour or community needs. That is a gift; in return, you’ll get someone else to gift. It sounds so simple!

If we all brought our gifts and everyone knew what they were, then we are on the way to taking the load off our day-to-day life. Then, we would know who to turn to when things get tough. 

What makes your life easier and better?

Ultimately, what makes your life easier and better is doing what you are good at and avoiding the things you aren’t. Unfortunately, doing anything you don’t like usually takes twice the amount of time, and it is never a pleasant experience! 

We are all connected. But society and the pace of life mean we have become disconnected. We’re rushing around, trying to do everything ourselves, and it feels alien as humans. We are tribal. We work and live better when we are happy in our tribe. Helping others helps us feel good, and we feel valued.

You see when you show love and kindness toward another human being:

• You make their day better (and, in turn, make yours better too)
• You help them feel good about themselves
• And most importantly: We ALL benefit from this!

So how do you get this into your life?

It is difficult to answer this question in the context of your current life. It is essential first to know what you think is important to you; once you know this, you can bring value to others.

Our cohousing community programmes start with you, then the planet. Then we look at what you can afford:invest as well as location. With a group of like-minded people, you can create enormous value for yourself, others and the world by designing a community and a place to live that makes this a way of life, not something you hope or dream of. 

If we work together, we can make life better for ourselves and others. 

Join us. Spend the time on yourself first and then be part of a community of like-minded people and explore how this can be possible.

Help to spread the word about Better Places to Work. Follow, like and share our mission across social media.

• Facebook
• Instagram
• LinkedIn
• Twitter
• YouTube

The post What is important in life? appeared first on A Fairer Society.

Extra Resource:

Dive into the concept of Healthy Power with experts Nathaniel Whitestone, John Buck, and Pete Burden. This video explores the transformation from traditional toxic power dynamics to collaborative, nurturing leadership. Plus at the end of this blog you’ll find links to videos and podcasts on Neighborocracy and more!

What is Healthy Power?

Healthy Power is the ability to know and accomplish one’s goals in a way that increases the power and wellbeing of everybody involved, the communities and ecosystems as well as the individuals and organisations.

Healthy Power shows up in systems where power is circular, fluid, and consensual.

Power is circular where a web of mutual influence enables each person or group to lead the others. If there’s “power over”, that power runs both ways, and thus becomes “power with”. 

This circular power is how great leaders actually lead and healthy communities actually function — forget about the nonsense myths of saints and heroic CEOs who have all the answers without listening to anyone because they are somehow one with the Source, or about “flat organisations” where nobody has any special expertise or influence. Neither of those exists in the real world. When people try to create make everyone fall in line with the insights of a brilliant leader, tragedies follow. When people try to make a community where nobody’s more special than anyone else, nothing gets done… or people just follow the guidance of influential people while refusing to admit they’re doing so.

Power is fluid when nobody owns it as a personal asset. Nobody is entitled to power; power is delegated by the organisation or community to those best suited to exercising it at a particular time. This might be the visionary founder! Or it might be someone else. 

Power is consensual when the people who are affected by it get a chance to say “yes please” or “no thanks”. This is different from the coercive tricks or outright force that are the norm in our society, and particularly in the world of work.

Taken together, these differences enable a high-integrity way of working and living that can replace the ills of modern life with a truly flourishing society.

The Role of Sociocracy in Cultivating Healthy Power

Sociocracy, a governance system that distributes leadership and emphasises consent-based decision-making, is a practical approach to achieving Healthy Power. It fosters transparent communication and collective management, allowing for distributed authority and increased individual agency.

Although Sociocracy is not the only way of cultivating Healthy Power, it’s worth adopting Sociocracy or a similar form of governance as an underlying framework that enables various other practices, from Agile working methods to Non Violent Communication, to be impactful together.

Stay tuned as we delve deeper into the practice of Healthy Power and how it can reshape our societal landscape.

Healthy Power Manifesto

We face a profound choice:
to continue with the ways of toxic power which we inherited,
or to build a world together where power is healthy for all.

We all love power.
We all suffer from toxic power.

Healthy Power is circular, not linear or flat.
Healthy Power is fluid, not frozen.
Healthy Power is consensual, not coercive.

Healthy Power is the ability to do work over time
in a way that is good for all the people and systems involved:
the ecosystems, the human communities, the customers, the workers, the
investors, the leaders,
all of us.

Healthy Power is not an alternative.
It is our future.

The Future is here. We Have Numerous Models of Healthy Power.
If you are committed to bringing healthy power to your workplace or your
community, you are already leading the shift to a world where power works for everyone.

It can be done. It must be done. We are doing it
We invite you to join us

Foundations of the Healthy Power Alliance

The Healthy Power Alliance was conceived in 2014 as a catalyst for change, and as a learning community bringing together practitioners in organisations and communities, consultants with expertise in developing healthy power, and academics interested in both theory and practice.

Join us in redefining power for the common good and make the commitment to be a part of the global transformation towards a healthier, more just world.

If you want to stay in the conversation, fill in this brief questionnaire! We’ll be in touch.
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1EV7zVc8rWUEWjfTg64qZI84zP0v-YnN0ZOZYNrcKdT4/edit

More Resources

PODCAST: Neighborocracy – an Indian success story in grassroots governance https://pod.link/1534854798/episode/a2e61cdde354d98e95b7cc10529d54b9

VIDEOS: Joseph Rathinam And Neighbourhood Democracy https://citizen-network.org/library/joseph-rathinam-ndm.html

PODCAST: Joseph Rathinam (Part 1): Neighborocracy- Global Governance From Below https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-neighboring-movement-podcast/id1450320068?i=1000632478432

BLOG: What a healthy workplace looks like https://afairersociety.com/what-a-healthy-workplace-looks-like/

Help to spread the word about Better Places to Work. Follow, like and share our mission across social media.

• Facebook
• Instagram
• LinkedIn
• Twitter
• YouTube

The post Understanding Healthy Power: An Introduction appeared first on A Fairer Society.

We know that there are healthy workplaces and toxic ones. But what actually makes a healthy workplace? This is the question I’ve asked myself for years as an employee at a cooperative business and as a consultant for other companies. As it turns out, there’s no one recipe for what makes a healthy organization or team: every one has its own unique ingredients—but they share some common themes that make them stand out from their peers.

We all know about toxic workplaces

You may have worked in a toxic workplace before. You might have been the victim of bullying, harassment, or discrimination. Or maybe your company has treated its employees poorly, perhaps by putting unreasonable demands on them and not paying them enough to make ends meet.

In any case, it’s clear that a healthy work environment is better for everyone: employees are happier and more productive; customers get more value from their purchases; investors see more returns over time; society benefits from fewer people suffering from stress-related illnesses like depression or anxiety disorders (which cost our economy an estimated $200 billion per year).

In a healthy workplace, people accomplish their goals together in a way that enhances the power and wellbeing of everyone involved

A healthy workplace is one in which people accomplish their goals together in a way that enhances the power and wellbeing of everyone involved. In a healthy workplace, it is not only possible to accomplish your own goals while helping others toward theirs; it’s necessary. You are richer for having helped someone else achieve their dreams, and they are richer for having helped you achieve yours.

Think back on some of your favorite projects at work:

• How did they come about?
• What was unique about them?
• Why did they succeed where others failed?

How it works

The way this looks is different for every business, but there are some common elements.

• Employee engagement: This means that your employees feel valued, challenged, and happy at work.
• High functioning teams: Teams that work well together produce better results than those that don’t; team members should help each other out as needed with tasks and projects—even if they’re not directly related to their jobs.
• Mutual care: Treating other people the way you’d like them to treat you will help build trust between coworkers. It’s important not only in terms of the company’s culture but also when it comes down to negotiating salary or raises (or even buying lunch!).
• Sense of shared purpose: Everyone in the organization should be working toward a single goal or mission—whether it’s making sure all customers receive excellent service at all times or shipping out products as soon as possible so no one misses any deadlines around Christmastime!

Example: Multistakeholder Cooperatives

An example of this is the Mondragon Cooperative system, which is a large group of cooperatives in Spain. There are many types of organizations that fall under the Mondragon umbrella, but they all have these things in common:

• The board of directors includes representatives from different stakeholder groups (employees, investors, management, and the environment)
• Each individual organization has workers who own their own shares and elect representatives to their board

The Mondragon Group closed only one business (among hundreds) during the 2008 recession, and due almost entirely to the activities of this cooperative group, the Mondragon region flourishes even when other areas of Spain are economically struggling. 

Example: Agile and Lean

If you want to see what a healthy workplace looks like, look no further than some of the most successful companies in the world (Toyota is one of the best known). Agile and Lean management principles have transformed organizations into more effective and efficient workplaces.​

Agile teams are 300% to 400% as productive as they would be using traditional management methods. The secrets of these high-performing workplaces are respect for people and continuous improvement (Kaizen). When you treat your employees with respect, they will do their best work so that you can succeed in meeting your goals. And by continually improving what you do, you’ll always stay ahead of competitors who aren’t doing this work every day!

Example: Purpose-led Business

A purpose-led company will be guided by a higher purpose, and its business decisions will be made with that in mind. The triple bottom line (3bl) refers to how companies should measure their success by looking at three areas: profit, people and planet. This means that they need to think about how their decisions affect both the environment and society as well as shareholders.

Companies such as Ben & Jerry’s implement 3bl strategies into their business model; they’re known for making decisions based on what’s best for society and the environment rather than just profits alone. They donate 1% of sales from every pint sold back into communities around the world — this helps fund projects like homeless shelters or water wells for communities lacking access to clean water supplies – which makes them an example of a company using triple bottom line thinking effectively within its operations.

Example: Sociocracy

The Sociocracy method of governance, in which each decision is made with the consent of all stakeholders, can be a powerful tool for creating a healthier workplace. 

Unlike some kinds of consensus (there are too many variations to list – unanimous agreement, supermajority votes, informal agreement, etc.), sociocratic consent does not require everyone to agree that a proposal is a good idea. Instead, participants simply need to agree that a proposal is “good enough for now and safe enough to try.”

If a participant identifies an unacceptable cost or risk, the information is welcomed. Skeptics are celebrated alongside visionaries in Sociocracy. If the cost or risk can be managed or reduced enough to make the proposal an affordable experiment, the default answer is “Yes.”

This combines the ability to rapidly evolve with an attention for social and organisational safety which simply cannot be matched by a majority-rule or authoritarian system of workplace governance.

This commitment to being guided by consent is built into the structure of sociocratic organisations through double-linking, the practice of combining the top-down leadership delegation of traditional bureaucracies with the election of bottom-up representatives selected by the teams reporting up their hierarchy. 

This two-way (or double-linked) system of leadership means that every part of the organisation has the ability to steer every other part. It is truly a system of circular power.

Conclusion

Whether you’re leading a large organisation or working in a small business, you’ll benefit from creating a healthier workplace: a place where everyone can accomplish their goals and increase their wellbeing without harming their broader society or environment. Numerous examples exist, and they are enriching their employees, their owners, their customers, and the world as a whole. I hope you can join us.

Help to spread the word about Better Places to Work. Follow, like and share our mission across social media.

• Facebook
• Instagram
• LinkedIn
• Twitter
• YouTube

The post What a healthy workplace looks like appeared first on A Fairer Society.

We are living in a society that dreams of wealth and success. We want to be rich, famous, and successful to live our best life. But the quest for this is damaging our society. So are we living lives or just working to live?

Work to live, or live to work?

There is a difference between working to live and living to work. Work and life are very different, and we must recognize the distinction. One shouldn’t be instead of the other; however, many people feel as though they have no choice but to choose one or the other. The cost of living and pressures on us demand it.

Work-life balance is a topic that comes up frequently in conversations at work or among friends because we all want to enjoy our lives and find meaning in what we do every day. And while this may seem like an easy thing to do—we can’t just go home after work and switch off! So how do you ensure there’s still room for enjoyment within its structure (or even outside of it)? Take care of yourself first, then worry about how much money you’ll make later. Easier said than done; I hear you say.

Working too hard means missing out on other essential areas of life

If you’re spending all of your time working, it means that you’re not happy. If you don’t enjoy your job, this will likely affect how hard you work. On the other hand, if you are exhausted and overworked, then it is likely that this will also affect the quality of work that employees do.

If people feel like they have no control over their lives, they are more likely to feel depressed and stressed out with no control over their circumstances (even if those circumstances weren’t ideal).

We all need to take a step back from our careers sometimes; otherwise, we run the risk of burning out entirely or feeling resentful towards our colleagues and employers. Or worse, our family and loved ones.

Not everyone can afford to take time off

Not everyone can take time off. While it’s easy for those with high-paid jobs that allow for travel and flexibility, many people cannot afford to take a week off from work and get away from it. 

Travelling is expensive, especially if you’re taking kids with you or have other financial obligations such as a mortgage or family members who depend on your income. Some people also have chronic illnesses or disabilities that limit their ability to travel long distances without difficulty.

There are also people without savings accounts; they don’t want to spend money on something frivolous when there are bills to pay and food on the table.

Enjoying life doesn’t have to be expensive

Many of us have forgotten how to enjoy life in a world where we are busy working to live. We think that to enjoy our life, we need to spend money. But this is not the case! Unfortunately, this is the society we see around us on social media. 

Instead of buying things, we should focus on building memories and experiences with our loved ones. Have fun in nature or start new hobbies. These activities will bring you closer as a family and make for great stories later in life when you look back at them together.

Sometimes the only solution is to make a change

All of the above is well and good, but what if you cannot leave your job? What if it’s taking a toll on your health, time with family and friends, or happiness? Then you must find a different solution; spending time in nature won’t cut it.

Sometimes we need to do something drastic to fix our problems. Sometimes we need to make changes for other parts of our life (like our career or the place we live) to improve or even stay afloat. For example, if you have a job that is causing anxiety or stress because of its demands on your time and energy, then maybe it’s time for some self-care by finding another position that allows for more balance between work responsibilities and personal obligations. Perhaps when you come home from work, your neighbourhood brings even more stress. Noisy neighbours or miles away from family and friends. These pressures will get you more focused on the job you hate.

What’s essential in life?

Many of us have a very mundane everyday life. Most days, when you leave the house, you go to work and then come home again. Spend most evenings and weekends in front of a screen, and it doesn’t have to be that way! It could change where you live or work, and it’s a choice.

We all value things in our lives more than money or fame: family, friends, and health are just some of them. We also have hobbies that make us happy, maybe even creative outlets through which we express ourselves spatially (art) or verbally (music).

We enjoy travel because it broadens our minds and helps us connect with other cultures and learn about new places and people worldwide – whether travelling alone or on holiday with friends or family members; whatever works best for everyone involved!

Work-life balance is essential when it comes down to living well, but sometimes balancing all these things together is difficult, especially if work takes up so much time during weekdays. In contrast, weekends should be time to relax at home, with downtime together without distractions! However, without working hard firstly, we can’t afford to live, never mind the fun, so both feel like they need each other equally for quality living conditions throughout life’s stages. This is the broken system we can’t escape.

Conclusion

What a complicated topic, and I don’t claim to have all the answers. However, I know that we need to find a balance between work and life. If you feel your job is taking over everything else in your life, then maybe it’s time to make some significant changes. 

But also, how can your home life be improved with small or subtle changes by the people you have around your community or neighbourhood? Maybe, it’s something an intentional community can bring you. 

What can you do to improve your life and your community?

Take our 1 minute quiz. Simply answer 9 questions to see if you need a Better Place To Live.

You’ll be scored on the following; A home that meets your needs, a community and neighbourhood that works with your day-to-day life and is friendly to the earth.

Help to spread the word about Cohousing, Better Places to Live and creating A Fairer Society.

Follow, like and share our mission across social media.

• Facebook
• Instagram
• LinkedIn
• YouTube

The post We are a society working to live. Can we change? appeared first on A Fairer Society.