Working Groups, Horizontal Organising, and Getting Things Done

“Working groups (#WG) have one job – get things done, they don’t need permission for every step – they need to report openly, consult when it affects others, and hand back decisions that are too big for them to own alone. That’s it, that’s the whole structure.” One of the biggest recurring naiveties of horizontal organising is the belief that every decision needs to be made by everybody. This sounds democratic, but in long historical practice this leads to endless meetings, burnout, frustration, and eventually informal hierarchies where the people with the most time, confidence, or stubbornness end up making decisions anyway. The result is a process that appears horizontal while quietly becoming ineffective. A simple principle cuts through much of this mess – Working Groups (#WG) have one job: get things done. They do not need permission for every step. They do not need endless consensus rounds, do not need to return every small decision to the collective, they need to: work openly…