Sociocracy is a philosophy that values cooperation and social and environmental responsibility. And, as Adrian Glamorgan finds, it's finding its way to Australia via some fascinating detours.

The day in 1985 when Dr Gina Price was first packing her bags to Antarctica, ready to be among 28 winterers at Mawson Base, a friend asked her, "How are you going to cope with living in a small isolated community for a year?" Gina drew her breath and replied: "I am as fascinated with that question as I am with the other aspects!"

Of course, she guessed the hard "cold heart" of Antarctica. She knew to expect hard work from the two other scientists, five construction workers, the team of radio operators, plumbers, electricians, mechanics, carpenters and cook. But beyond the skills, logistics and lines of authority, and the fragile, punishing environment, she could not guess at the tricky situations they would face together socially. These difficulties came unexpectedly: a proposal to paint the shared lounge really bright colours; finding the food became too salty when the cook got cranky; and the decision that had to be made about ending the lives of infirm, older huskies. Gina learned, as did others, "we had clear roles and responsibilities ...However, our competency didn't carry through to our decision making."

Gina went because she was, and is inspired, by auroras. A love for these extraordinary Northern and Southern Lights, mixed with her innate scientific respect and curiosity, pulled Gina from her West Australian home to the extremes of the earth: Fairbanks, Alaska, the remote jagged peaks of Spitzbergen in Norway, and that first long wintry sojourn at Mawson Base in Antarctica.

As an auroral physicist, she investigated the beautiful sky swatches and swirls of pure colour to understand more about how solar wind meets polar darkness, and ions interact with the Earth's magnetic field and affect our upper atmosphere. During those polar nights, Gina witnessed "a symphony of light encompassing small passive arcs, softly pulsating patches and large dynamic curls and curtains which form crowns of light encircling....You forget how cold you're getting because you're absorbed in this amazing show in the sky."

By comparison, the unease on the base about culling some of the 28 huskies used for field trips appeared much more complex. Some people became very upset. The dogs added something to the base. Gina explains, "I felt safe with the dogs. I wouldn't go into an ice cave that they wouldn't go in to. A lot of us enjoyed running them, but they were working dogs, an integral part." When it was time to cull and decide the fate of the older dogs, "interestingly it was those who worked more closely with the dogs who understood the need and some who rarely ventured near the dog lines were the ones who were fiercely opposed to the culling."

Some decisions, like painting the wall a lurid colour, are a matter of aesthetics. Some decisions, like convincing a cook to go easy on the salt, must be very delicately negotiated indeed. Other matters, like animal welfare, touch on ethics, but also people's complex emotional state. Antarctica might be a long way away, but the kind of problems it threw up for Gina started her thinking about how we make decisions together in our workplaces, families and wider community, and how often those decisions aren't made well. As for the huskies, with food in short supply, "Finally the deed was quietly done and it wasn't until much later that I learnt how difficult it was for the person who carried it out." We make decisions, but rarely know the toll they take on the people involved.

Serendipity struck with just hearing the single word "sociocracy". Hitting the web, Gina Price discovered the work of a Dutch electrical engineer, Gerard Endenburg. Endenberg is a technical genius, the man responsible for inventing the flat speaker we use today in personal radios and mobile phones. More than that, Endenberg has used the logic of physics and information loops in nature, the science of cybernetics, to devise a communication and decision making method named "dynamic governance", or more commonly, "sociocracy". He's put these ideas to the test successfully in his own electrics company and turned it around from bankruptcy. Sociocracy is being examined by a range of companies, as an important tool of governance. The European divisions of Shell, Mars and Pfizer use it; the US Green Building Council relies on it. Gina was so intrigued that, with her colleague Liz Dare, she organised a training circle of her own to bring the first sociocracy trainer to Australia, Tena Meadows O'Rear, from the United States.

Tena's tenacious! She cofounded the Way Station, for people in need, and lives and works in EcoVillage of Loudoun, Virginia, a cutting edge environmentally responsible cohousing community that she jointly founded in 1995. Like Gina, Tena is a Quaker, and it turns out Endenberg's mentor had Quaker roots. This is accidental, or perhaps it isn't. Something about mutual respect must resonate.
Currently, Tena supports sociocracy in the US Green Building Council and its Chapters across the country, Common Market, a highly successful organic and natural foods cooperative grocery that O'Rear helped to found, and the White Dog Café in Philadelphia, one of the first restaurants in the US to emphasise organic, locally grown food, and renowned for its socially responsible business practices. They're all using sociocracy to make decisions and communicate. It seems to be working.

I mentioned the White Dog Café in Philadelphia. It's world renowned for its funky way of doing business, and its heartfelt connection with sustainable agriculture and yummy cuisine. But by some coincidence - is there such a thing? - way back in 1875 the building was home to one Madame Helena P Blavatsky. The story goes that while she lived at that house, the colourful spiritualist became ill with an infected leg, which led her through an inner transformation. The doctors wanted to amputate. Instead, she had a white dog sleep across her leg by night - and she was cured! She became the founder of Theosophy, grandparent to the current holistic movement, and gave the café its name. Sociocracy now has the pressure cooker of the hospitality business to prove itself!

So, by some strange, poetic thread, husky and white dog, aurora and Way Station, Gina Price and Tena Meadows O'Rear (and Judy Wicks, White Dog Café founder), are all becoming involved in bringing sociocracy to Australia.

Why the hype? Well, sociocracy offers something new where it's needed. Tena's eco-housing community started with enthusiasm and vision, shining conversations and inspiring meetings, until the decisions started to get real. They mattered. "Our group was falling apart," she admits, "and we would have fallen apart, but someone had heard about this obscure Dutch guy and sociocracy." So they brought in John Buck, who seemed to know something about it all, the meetings got better, shorter, people acted responsibly, information got fed back, things got done, and now they wouldn't meet without it.

As Endenburg considered natural systems, he thought about the principles that endlessly repeat. Nature rewards cooperation, relies on local expertise, taps the power of limits. Nature relies on sunlight (transparency and openness), and diversity (so everyone has a voice, maintaining safe space.) Nature recycles, fits form to function, uses only the energy it needs, curbs excesses from within. Endenburg worked out a system that mirrors these dynamics. It takes a little training. Employees have to go through induction. People need occasional reminding and topping up. But instead of thwarted employees and isolated leaders, there is a rich engagement, and a productive workplace. Most of all, in a time of change, the system encourages flexibility and adaptation to change. Think what lies ahead for us with global warming! Will our current ways of doing democracy and business planning be enough?

Gina's take is that humanity once went through what could be poetically described as an era of lightning. "Lightning can be seen as an expression of divine will and autocratic, top down rule by power." After Zeus' arbitrary attack, came the rainbow. "The rainbow era brought forth freedom, thought and self expression of the individual. Every person sees their own rainbow. The rainbow is a purely optical, static phenomenon with no source of energy. It could be considered to be associated with the era of democracy and recognition of the perspective of the individual."

Largely unknown before the 20th century, "the aurora era brings a global consciousness. The aurora encompasses and unites the globe and is visible from space. In fact, aurora may be used as a signature of oxygen and thus life on distant planets. The aurora is active over a huge range of scales and is dynamic and self steering." Similarly, she suggests, "sociocracy enables organisations from small community to global bodies to generate and steer themselves. A few simple rules make the aurora work." Gina thinks the principles of sociocracy might do the same for human organisations, corporations and communities.
Husky, white dog and aurora. If the answer isn't sociocracy, then pray it's something like it, something new to help us warmly meet each other at the moment of conflict and not turn away. Maybe this is the biggest challenge humanity has right now: finding a way to talk and govern ourselves, with integrity, honesty and good nature.