Embedding participatory structures and processes for leading together
36 min read 9 sections 4 practices
{elena’s story}
The email arrives on a thursday afternoon in early February: the department’s annual budget, broken down by category, with a note from the director asking managers to confirm their allocations by the end of the month. As usual.
Elena reads it twice. The numbers are almost identical to last year. Home visit hours: same. Administrative overhead: slightly up. And yes, there is the footnote reminding managers that all new initiatives require approval through the standard submission process.
She forwards it to her calendar. She has done this every February for seven years.
Then she stops. She thinks about the last four months. The open hour meetings, Jonas’s question on the whiteboard, Sara’s growing confidence. She thinks about participatory structures: If you change the culture but not the structures, the structures will eventually win.
She looks at the budget email again. The structure, she realises, has been saying something to her team every year without anyone noticing: the important decisions are made before you arrive. Your job is to implement them.
Every open meeting, every honest conversation, every carefully created condition… and then this email lands and quietly undoes the message. Not maliciously. Just structurally.
She opens a new email to her team. She stares at the blank subject line for a moment. Then she writes: “This year I’d like us to decide the budget together. Can we put 90 minutes in?”
She sends it before she can talk herself out of it.
Elena comes to the meeting having done something she has never done before: she shares the full budget document with the team in advance, with no prior markings, no suggested allocations, and no hints about what she thinks the right answer is. Just the numbers and a single question at the top of the shared document: “If this were your budget to allocate, what would you prioritise and why?”
The conversation does not go smoothly. Per wants to protect the administrative hours because he’s seen what happens when they get cut. Sara pushes for more investment in community-facing work. Jamal asks a question nobody has a clean answer to: ”How do we measure whether we’re spending this money on the right things?” It’s the same question the kpi dashboard has been failing to answer for years, and here it is, surfacing from the team itself, in the middle of a budget meeting.
Jonas is quiet for the first 40 minutes. Elena notices but says nothing.
Then he puts something on the table. Not the coffee morning proposal that he initiated one year ago, but a question: “What if part of the budget was not pre-allocated at all? What if we kept a small amount of it fluid, and decided how to use it quarterly, based on what we’re actually seeing out there?”
The room considers this. It is, Elena thinks immediately, slightly impractical. The approval process would require… she stops herself. She lets the thought form fully before judging it.
It is slightly impractical. It is also exactly right in principle. A small pool of truly flexible resources, governed by the team, responsive to what they’re actually encountering in the field. It would require her to nego-tiate something with the director… It would require a different kind of accountability structure. It might be very impractical for the it systems that require filing some reports… “I think we should try it,” she says. “I’ll work out what it takes to make it possible.”
The final allocation looks nothing like what Elena would have decided alone. She approves it with a feeling she recognises from the team meeting three months ago: the particular discomfort of trusting something you didn’t design.
Six weeks later, Jonas uses the first quarterly allocation of the flexible pool to fund three community coffee mornings. Previously, the community coffee morning concept had been cited as an example of why clearer submission guidelines were needed. This time, there is no submission. There is a fifteen-minute conversation in an open hour meeting where Jonas explains what he’s seeing, the team asks three questions, and it is a safe enough experiment to test.
They do it. Mrs. Andersson comes to the first community coffee. She brings a neighbor Elena has never heard of –a woman in her eighties who, it turns out, has been entirely unknown to the department despite living only two streets away.
There is no column on the kpi dashboard for this. Elena writes it in her notebook instead.
5.1Creating participatory structures for leading together#
The shift towards more collective forms of leadership not only requires cultural transformation, but it also necessitates making concrete changes to how work is organised, how decisions are made, and how resources are allocated. Participatory structures provide the frameworks and processes that allow genuine collaboration and shared leadership to function in practice. Without these structures, it becomes difficult to sustain new practices, and organisations tend to default back to conventional hierarchies. Participatory structures inscribe the principles of shared leadership and participation into the system, making the system a little bit less vulnerable and reducing reliance on the specific individuals who initiated the principles in the first place to maintain them. When the practice of leading together spreads to other parts of organisation – beyond the initial teams that prototyped them – structures and processes become easier to transfer and spread than culture, which is more sensitive and bound to people and context.
Traditional hierarchical organisations operate on top-down control principles. Decisions flow from senior leadership downwards, information is shared on a “need to know” basis, and participation is often limited to implementing decisions made elsewhere. This approach assumes that those at the top have the best view of the entire system and possess the needed expertise to make good decisions.
Co-creation principles operate from fundamentally different assumptions. They recognise that valuable knowledge and insight exist throughout the organisation—those closest to the work often understand its realities better than those in distant leadership positions. Co-creation assumes that better decisions emerge when diverse perspectives contribute to shaping them, and that people are more committed to implementing decisions they helped create. The shift from top-down to co-creation principles means redesigning organisational processes to enable meaningful participation in the decisions and work that affect people.
This doesn’t mean everyone participates in every decision—that would be both inefficient and exhausting. Rather, it means thoughtfully designing participation into organisational processes: determining how meetings should be held, who needs to be involved in which decisions, creating clear processes for how decisions will be made, and building in mechanisms for input, feedback, and accountability. The goal is not maximum participation, but appropriate participation—involving the right people in the right ways at the right times.
In the following section, we describe some examples of participatory structures. These are the structures that have been identified by experts and organisations who have worked with collective forms of leadership and self-management for a long time as the most important for change. In the following “Voices from the field” sections, experts who have been advisors in our research projects also reflect on where to start as you begin to test participatory structures in your own organisation. Which structures might be easier to introduce than others and which structures demand a higher maturity level for leading together before teams and organisations are ready to adopt them?
As described earlier in this handbook, adopting participatory ways of working involves shifting towards more purposeful work—both in terms of how people experience it and the value it creates. Since meetings constitute a large proportion of work time, it is crucial to design meetings that create genuine value and include only those who need to be there. Our research consistently shows that meetings consume a lot of people’s time (especially for managers), leaving little room for other activities, yet they often fail to deliver meaningful value. Compounding this problem, organisational norms around meetings are not always questioned or challenged, even when ineffective. If we genuinely want to encourage participation—whether in generating ideas or making decisions—developing intentional practices for how we meet becomes essential.
Different purposes call for different meeting designs. An information-sharing meeting should look fundamentally different from a decision-making meeting, which should look different from a creative problem-solving session. Each type of meeting requires appropriate structures to enable genuine participation rather than passive attendance. This means being intentional about several dimensions of meetings:
Purpose clarity: Why are we meeting? What do we need to accomplish together that cannot be accomplished asynchronously or through other means? If the purpose is simply information sharing, which could be accomplished through documentation, the meeting may not be necessary.
Appropriate participation: Who actually needs to be present for this meeting’s purpose? Who has the relevant expertise or perspective? Who will be affected by the decisions made? Who needs to be informed but doesn’t need to actively participate in the discussion?
Process design: What meeting structure and facilitation approach will enable the level of participation needed? Should we focus on small group discussions, paired conversations, silent reflection, or a dialogue with the whole group? How can we ensure the quieter voices are heard alongside the louder ones?
Role clarity: Who will facilitate the meeting to keep it focused and participatory? Who will document decisions and next steps? Who is responsible for the content and outcomes?
Organisations transitioning towards shared leadership often need to look over their meeting culture: Which meetings are actually necessary? Which ones leave people feeling energised versus drained? Where is genuine participation happening, and where are people just going through the motions? This audit often reveals that many meetings can be eliminated or redesigned, freeing up time and energy for more meaningful collaboration. Moreover, considering the importance of in-person meetings for supporting relationship building (as described in Chapter 3), it is important to agree on which meetings should be in person.
Meeting roles: Purpose driver, Facilitator, and Documenter#
One practical way to make meetings more participatory is to explicitly assign key meeting roles. This approach, drawn from sociocracy and other collaborative governance methods, ensures that necessary functions are fulfilled while preventing any one person from dominating.
Purpose driver: This person holds the meeting’s purpose and content. They have proposed the meeting because there’s work that needs to be done collectively. As the Purpose driver, they contribute clarity about what needs to be accomplished—whether that’s a decision that needs to be made, a problem that needs to be solved, or information that must be shared. However, they don’t run the meeting—that’s the facilitator’s role. The Purpose driver participates in the meeting just like anyone else, sharing their perspective and expertise. What distinguishes them is the responsibility they have for the content and outcomes—ensuring the meeting actually accomplishes what it was convened to accomplish.
Facilitator: This person serves the meeting’s process. They’re not responsible for the content or outcomes, but for helping the group work together. As the Facilitator, they watch the time and recommend process structures (for example, should we break into pairs? Do we need silent reflection? Shall we go around the table and share?). They ensure everyone who wants to speak gets heard, notices when the conversation is circling or getting stuck, and helps the group move towards its purpose. Critically, the Facilitator should generally not be the same person as the Purpose driver. Separating the roles allows the Purpose driver to fully engage with the meeting’s content while the Facilitator focuses on the process. It also prevents the common pattern of one person both driving the content and controlling how the conversation unfolds.
Documenter: This person captures key decisions, action items, important points raised, and questions that need future attention. They’re not documenting the transcript verbatim but rather distilling the meeting into what needs to be remembered and acted upon.Like the Facilitator, the Documenter generally doesn’t lead the content discussion—their attention is split between listening and capturing. Good documentation makes the meeting’s work available to others in an easily accessible format and makes it easier to follow through on commitments.
Rotating roles: Rather than always assigning the same people to drive the meeting’s purpose, facilitate, or document, rotating these roles each meeting helps build capacity across the team. It also prevents power from concentrating—when everyone takes a turn facilitating, no one person will always control the meeting process.
Practice: At your next team meeting, assign each of these roles to a different person. Before starting, have each person briefly explain what their role entails. After the meeting, take some time to debrief by exploring these questions: How did having clear roles change the meeting? What worked well? What was challenging? How might you refine these roles for your team? Try using these meeting roles in your upcoming meetings and see what happens when you rotate them among team members.
Perhaps nothing reveals an organisation’s true approach to collaboration more than how decisions actually get made. In hierarchical systems, decision-making authority is tied to position: managers decide for their teams, senior leaders decide for the organisation. Even when input is solicited, the person with formal authority retains veto power and makes the final call.
Different types of decision-making processes.
In participatory decision-making, authority is distributed more widely, but this is done thoughtfully rather than assuming all decisions should involve everyone. Different decisions call for different approaches:
Advice process: The person closest to the decision or with the most expertise makes the decision, but only after seeking advice from those who will be affected and those with relevant expertise. This maintains clarity about who makes the decision while ensuring the decision benefits from diverse input. The advice giver doesn’t have veto power, but the decision-maker is expected to genuinely consider the advice received.
Consent-based decision-making: The group decides together, but instead of requiring everyone to agree (consensus), they only ask whether anyone has a principled objection—a reason to believe the decision would cause harm or move the organisation backward. This allows decisions to move forward when they’re “good enough for now, safe enough to try” while still protecting against harmful choices. Consent recognises that in complex situations, we often can’t know the perfect solution in advance—we need to experiment and learn.
Consensus-based decision-making: The group makes decisions by seeking solutions that everyone actively agrees with and supports. Through discussion and iterative refinement, proposals are modified until all members reach full agreement. While consensus builds deep commitment and ensures comprehensive input, it requires a significant amount of time and can create barriers to action when unanimous agreement cannot be achieved. Consensus assumes that the group can and should reach complete alignment before proceeding, which may not be suitable for complex or time-sensitive contexts where experimentation and learning are necessary.
Mandate: For certain operational decisions that need to happen quickly or repeatedly, the team can give an individual or small group a clear mandate to make decisions within defined boundaries. This isn’t a return to hierarchy—it’s the team consciously choosing to delegate authority for the sake of efficiency, with the understanding that the mandate may be reviewed and adjusted in the future.
The key is to clearly specify which decision-making process should be used for each type of decision. Without this clarity, groups often default to seeking consensus on everything (leading to exhaustion and slow decision-making) or deferring to whoever has the loudest voice or most formal authority (undermining genuine participation).
Practices for different decision-making processes#
The Decision protocol exercise helps teams identify and redesign their decision-making processes. First, ensure that participants understand the various types of decision-making processes. To create a protocol, participants begin by writing down the different kinds of decisions they make – whether in their work, team or organisation. Each decision should be written on a separate sticky note. Once complete, ask participants to place their sticky notes on the group’s two-axis diagram: Risk vs. Reversibility. This creates a shared understanding of the decisions currently being made and how they are being made. The team can then negotiate which decision-making processes they want to change and begin redesigning them. Low-risk decisions that are reversible should be made by mandate. High-risk and reversible decisions should be made through an advice or consent process. Low-risk but more permanent decisions should also be made through an advice or consent process. Lastly, high-risk decisions that are permanent should be made through a consensus process. In hierarchical organisations, teams may find it challenging to make all decisions on their own since some decisions may fall outside their authority. However, this limitation itself can reveal important areas for broader organisational redesign and inspire next steps for addressing them. We recommend revisiting the protocol after a trial period to discuss and revise it based on experience.
Consent-based decision-making offers a middle path between one person making the decision (mandate) and everyone having to agree (consensus). It’s based on the principle, “Is this good enough for now, safe enough to try?”
The consent question: Instead of asking, “Does everyone agree with this proposal?”, the consent process asks, “Does anyone have a principled objection to this proposal?” A principled objection is not simply “I don’t like it” or “I would do it differently”—it’s saying, “I have reason to believe this will cause harm or move us backward”.
Proposal development: Someone develops a proposal—a specific suggestion for what should be done. This should be concrete enough to allow for evaluation. “We should improve our communication” is too vague. “We should have a 15-minute daily standup meeting at 9am” is concrete.
Clarifying questions: The group asks questions to gain a better understanding of the proposal. These are not opinions or concerns yet—just questions to clarify what’s being proposed. “Would the standup be on video or just audio?” “What happens if someone can’t make it at 9am?”
Quick reactions: The group completes a quick round where everyone briefly shares their immediate reaction. “I like this”. “I’m uncertain about the timing”. “I’m excited to try this”. This tests the temperature of the room without requiring deep discussion yet.
Concerns and suggestions: Participants are now invited to share concerns and suggestions for improving the proposal. The proposer listens and can modify the proposal based on what they hear. This isn’t a debate—it’s a collaborative improvement of the idea.
Amended proposal: The proposer presents any changes they’ve made based on concerns and suggestions.
Consent round: The facilitator asks clearly: “Does anyone have a principled objection to this proposal?” Each person responds: • “I consent” or “No objection” • “I have an objection” (which they must explain)
Integration: If there are any objections, the group works to understand them and, if possible, modify the proposal to resolve the objection. This may necessitate making further amendments, gathering more information, or sometimes determining that the objection reveals a fundamental problem with the proposal.
Proposals are experiments: You’re not trying to find the perfect solution, but something good enough to try. You can always revisit and adjust based on what you learn.
Silence means consent: If someone doesn’t speak up during the consent round, the proposal moves forward. This places responsibility on each person to voice concerns rather than remaining silent and then complaining later.
Principled objections require reasoning: You can’t just say “I object”. You must explain why you believe the proposal will cause harm or move the organisation backward. This prevents arbitrary blocking while protecting against genuinely problematic decisions.
The proposer has the authority to modify: As the group shares concerns and suggestions, the proposer decides what changes to make. The group doesn’t negotiate wordsmithing by committee—the proposer integrates feedback as they see fit. However, if they don’t adequately address concerns, objections are more likely in the consent round.
A practice for consent-based decision-making process: Try consent-based decision-making by applying it to a real but relatively low-stakes decision your team needs to make. Before starting, review the process steps and clarify the difference between “I would prefer something different” (not an objection) and “I believe this will cause harm” (a valid objection).
5.5Participatory budgeting and resource allocation#
Money and resources represent real organisational power—they determine what work gets done and whose priorities get attention. In public sector organisations, budgets are typically allocated to specific silos in the yearly budget planning process, where top management makes key decisions, often without meaningful dialogue with those who will use the funds. This rigidity makes it difficult to respond to emerging needs, support cross-organisational collaboration, or adjust spending based on actual usage. Competition for resources between silos (and within them) further undermines collaboration. For example, one department with surplus funds may be unwilling to share with another facing shortfalls, even when doing so would benefit the organisation as a whole.
Hierarchical approval processes—where managers must sign off on every expenditure—signal a lack of trust in employees and waste valuable time that could be spent on strategic work rather than administrative gatekeeping. Moreover, managers are often the only ones with permission to approve costs related to IT systems. This lack of financial transparency can be a problem for employees who lack access to budget information that would help them make informed decisions about their work, even when such insight is essential to their roles.
Participatory budgeting aims to address these issues by fostering collaboration and transparency in resource allocation. There are several approaches organisations can take to make budgeting more participatory. First, organisations can redesign IT systems to increase budget transparency, ensuring that relevant employees have access to financial information. Second, budgets can be made more flexible, allowing adjustments based on actual spending and evolving needs— whether within teams or across departments. Third, funds can be allocated cross-organisationally as a way of supporting collaboration by creating shared resources that transcend departmental silos, thereby reducing competition and enabling joint initiatives. Specific processes can be designed to enable dialogue and collaborative decision-making among employees, both within teams, departments and across organisational silos. Organisations can begin by setting aside dedicated funds—even a small percentage—to pilot participatory budgeting processes and test more flexible, collaborative approaches to resource allocation. A further approach could be to reimagine and experiment with how citizens can participate in budgeting questions.
Introducing participatory budgeting often demands a certain level of trust and is not the easiest participatory structure to introduce into a team or organisation that is still learning how to practise shared leadership. This is especially true for transparency and decision-making processes around salaries which lies at the furthest spectrum of working with participatory structures and is generally only reachable for teams and organisations once the basics are genuinely in place. In the public sector, where salaries are more regulated, the possibilities for employees to have an impact on them are limited. However, other parts of the budget might be more flexible and open to participation.
When moving towards a more participatory budget process, one of the first steps a team or department can take is to remove salary costs from their yearly budget (since this will be hard to influence) and make the rest of the budget open for different proposals. Different groups responsible for specific initiatives, projects or tasks can estimate their budget needs and submit proposals. Proposals can be presented and mapped together by the entire team/department, and linked to the team’s overall purpose and yearly goals or priorities. The team should decide how best to distribute the budget based on supporting the overall purpose and impact the team wants to make on society/their users (for example, what is best for the citizens they are serving?) rather than the specific needs of particular projects.
Financial information and recurring costs connected to different projects, initiatives or work areas can be made transparent to everyone. Every three months, the team can review the actual budget together and flexibly move resources between initiatives based on who needs them most to achieve the desired shared impact. Things will change during the year; some groups might be able to spend less money than initially planned and vice versa. Therefore, it benefits the whole team/ department to maintain flexibility and distribute resources in a more emergent way. This process can strengthen a shared sense of responsibility and ownership, rather than having different departments, teams or groups always competing for resources.
5.6Information sharing, transparency and accessible documentation#
Meaningful participation in decision-making and budget allocation fundamentally requires access to relevant information. Individuals cannot participate effectively in decisions without understanding the key factors at play. Beyond enabling participation, improved documentation practices can capture situated knowledge from frontline practitioners, making local needs visible across the organisation. This better informs funding decisions and prevents redundant efforts caused by poor knowledge coordination. However, managing complex datasets across diverse domains and contexts presents significant challenges. Developing robust information-sharing systems is, nevertheless, critical if the public sector aims to make evidence-informed decisions and respond effectively to local needs— requirements now mandated by the new Social Services Act (Socialtjänstlagen). People who work closest to citizens and local contexts need systematic means to articulate and communicate these needs throughout organisational hierarchies.
Shared leadership requires much higher levels of transparency and more intentional approaches to information sharing. The default should be transparency: unless there are specific reasons for confidentiality—such as personal information, legal restrictions, or competitive sensitivity—information should be accessible to anyone in the organisation who might find it useful. However, simply making information available isn’t enough. Information must be organised and presented in formats people can actually use. This might involve creating accessible summaries alongside detailed reports, using visual representations of data, or maintaining evolving documents that get updated as situations change rather than sending endless email updates. Indeed, participatory organisations invest in helping people understand not just what the numbers say, but what they mean—what trends they reveal, what questions they raise, and what context is essential for interpreting them properly.
5.7Challenges in introducing and maintaining participatory structures#
Organisations implementing participatory structures face several systemic obstacles. Many organisational systems—from IT platforms to approval workflows—are built on hierarchical assumptions that force work to detour through traditional channels regardless of stated collaborative values. This requires auditing and redesigning processes to eliminate embedded hierarchical patterns. Resistance often emerges from other parts of the organisation that maintain hierarchical structures. Additionally, legal and regulatory requirements create real boundaries around certain decisions, though many assumed constraints don’t actually have legal requirements attached. When distinguishing between actual legal requirements and organisational habits, it is necessary to consult with compliance experts. They can help identify where participatory approaches are genuinely possible.
Beyond structural barriers, participatory work requires developing different skills and maintaining an ongoing commitment. Many people lack experience with facilitation, distributed decision-making, and transparent communication, making skill development essential before implementing new structures. Time pressures can create tension, as participatory processes often take longer at first. However, this initial investment can lead to better decisions, greater effectiveness and smoother implementation down the line. Maintaining participatory approaches requires building them into organisational habits through documentation, regular review, explicit onboarding, and a collective commitment to preserving these practices – even when reverting to hierarchy might seem easier.
What processes do you already have in place in your team/ organisation that invite participation, co-creation and shared leadership?
What processes in your team/organisation do you feel are more top-down or within the domain of formal managers?
What enables versus hinders participation and shared leadership in your team/organisation today?
Which of the processes that formal managers are responsible for today would be most meaningful to democratise?
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Which work tasks or teams in your organisation could be the best place to start for testing participatory structures?
Where can you find pockets of possibilities in your own team’s work processes where it might be easy to start testing more participation and collective leadership?
How could you test more participatory meeting formats?
Which type of meeting could you most easily start prototyping with and how could such a meeting be redesigned to invite more participation and shared leadership?
How can you create possibilities for training and skills development in areas like facilitation that are at the core of practicing participatory structures?
Who might be the first ambassadors/people in your team/ who would be interested in participating in such training? How could you engage them?
What are the different types of decisions being made in your team and how do you typically make these decisions today?
If you could introduce more participative decision-making processes, which decisions would you make through mandate, advice process, consent and consensus?
In which areas would it be important to increase the mandate for individuals to make decisions within their own areas of responsibility and expertise without involving managers?
How could you try sharing responsibility for the processes that traditionally fall within the domain of formal managers and support functions (like HR)? For example, recruitment and onboarding of new team members, development and feedback talks, holding meetings, planning vacations, and creating a thriving work environment.
How is the budget planned and decided upon today in your team/ organisation?
What are some first steps you could take to introduce more participation in budget planning and budget management within your team/organisation?
How transparent is information sharing in your team/organisation?
Which types of information should be made accessible to more people in your team/organisation to enable greater participation in decision-making and the practice of shared leadership?
In what forms should this information be made available to make it accessible and easily understandable?
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In this chapter, we have discussed different aspects of how to embed participatory structures that enable leading together. We have argued that, without participatory structures, it becomes difficult to sustain practices for leading together over time, and organisations tend to default back to conventional hierarchies. Embedding participatory structures into an organisation makes the system less vulnerable and dependent on the specific people who initiated practices for shared leadership.
Not all participatory structures are easy to implement. Some demand a higher level of trust and maturity than others. Often, starting with participatory meeting structures and decision-making processes is the easiest, while structures around participatory budgeting, role distribution, and changing information-sharing systems for increased transparency might be more difficult. In this chapter, we suggested different practices and processes that can help you start implementing participatory structures in your own team and organisation.
Working with participatory processes requires different skills that are often lacking in traditional organisations built on hierarchies. Training and competence development in skills like facilitation and distributed decision-making are therefore crucial. Especially at the beginning of transformation processes, providing training can help you build a critical mass of people with the skills needed to introduce and spread practices and processes for shared leadership across your organisation.