The steering committee that dissolves itself

Four to seven people who know from the first day that they are scaffolding — and who dissolve their own founding authority once the building stands.

Something has to begin. Before a body has members, agreements, or a way of deciding, a few people carry it — and that is legitimate, necessary, and temporary. What makes it safe is that the dissolution is designed in at the start, before anyone has grown attached to the standing, and while the founders are still the ones who would benefit from writing it (The Community Company, Disbanding, Term Limits And Rotation).

It is load-bearing because founding authority is the most reasonable-sounding of all the ways a body goes wrong. The founders genuinely do know most; the work genuinely is fragile; handing it over genuinely is risky. Every one of those is true, and all three remain true forever, which is precisely why the decision cannot be left to the moment. A founding group that will dissolve when the time is right never finds that the time is right (Centralization Of Power, A role held forever quietly becomes a throne, Institutional Idolatry).

The number is small on purpose — four to seven — because a founding group large enough to represent everybody is a government, and a founding group of one is a founder (Span of Control, Cell).

What dissolution actually means is specific: the authority goes, not the people. Founders remain members, keep working, and are made whole for what they gave at the start. What ends is the standing to decide on everyone else's behalf, and it ends by being handed to a body that can decide for itself (Consent, Legitimacy, The Calling of the Ecclesia).

There is an older name for the disposition underneath it: leadership whose measure is how well the thing runs when you are no longer needed (Servant Leadership, The Act Of Release, Wise Eldership).

Also called: the founding scaffolding Stands on: Governance · Consent · Term Limits And Rotation Opens onto: The Community Company · A role held forever quietly becomes a throne · Disbanding · Servant Leadership · The Calling of the Ecclesia · Centralization Of Power · The Act Of Release · Impeachment In play: the door — decided at a body's founding, executed later Sources: The DNA of Heaven, Part IV, §The Community Company (Fable synthesis — the first of the six founding steps) · The LIØNSBERG Community Guidebook, Step 1 (draft) · lionsberg.wiki: Term Limits And Rotation Open: Nothing states what triggers the dissolution — a date, a membership count, a readiness test — or what happens if the committee declines to dissolve itself when it comes.