Roles Map

Not an org chart. A living map of who has agreed to carry what.

An org chart draws boxes of power — who is above whom. A Community Company has none of those. What it has instead is roles — bundles of responsibility that sovereign people freely agree to carry, and freely hand on. This tool maps them. Companion to Step 4 — Learning to Play The New Game and the Consent Governance One-Pager.

The Creed Underneath It

Before the map, the spirit of it:

There are no owners. There are no bosses. There is no one to blame. There are only mutually agreed roles and responsibilities, entered into by the free consent of sovereign people.

A role is not a rank. Holding the resource-flow role does not make you anyone's superior; it makes you accountable to everyone for that flow. Roles are services to the body, and they rotate.

The Map

List the roles your Company actually needs — no more. For each, name what it is for, who holds it now, how big it is, and who it must coordinate with.

Size (1–10) is just an honest estimate of how much of a person's working energy the role takes — a 2 is a light touch, an 8 is most of someone's week. It is not status. Naming size out loud prevents the quiet overload that breaks volunteers.

How Roles Are Filled — and Released

• By consent and vouching, not appointment. A role is filled when someone is willing, others vouch that they can carry it, and the body consents. No one is installed from above, because there is no above.
• Match the size of the role to the size of the person — the time and capacity they actually have, this season. A role two sizes bigger than the person holding it will fail them and the body. Keep them within about a notch of each other.
• Roles rotate. Name a season-length term, and hand the role on. A role held forever quietly becomes a throne.
• Anyone can raise a role. If a need goes unmet and your hands are willing, propose a role for it (the Rule of Three is enough to begin). If a role no longer serves, retire it.

Keep this map visible to every member. People should always be able to see who carries what — that visibility is how a body coordinates without a boss.

The Right Soul in the Right Role

A role is well-held when the person and the role truly fit. Before someone takes one on — and gently, season by season, after — the body asks four honest questions together:

• Do they share the Driver and the Values? Skill without shared purpose will, in time, steer the role astray. This comes first.
• Do they get it? Do they genuinely grasp what the role is for and what it asks?
• Do they want it? Not "will they accept it," but do they truly desire to carry it? An unwanted role is a slow resentment.
• Do they have the capacity? The time, the energy, and the gifts the role actually requires, this season.

A yes to all four is a soul in the right role. A persistent no is not a verdict on the person — it is a sign to re-shape the role, or to find the role that fits the gift they do carry. Hold these as questions of love, asked in the open, never as a judgment passed in private.

To keep roles this way is to learn the whole System: that there are no bosses, only service freely taken up; that authority flows from consent; and that every soul is sovereign, matched to the work that is truly theirs.

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