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Writing Roles’ Accountabilities in Holacracy
Common Pitfalls and Easy Fixes
During my work helping clients roll out Holacracy in their companies, I’ve noticed that in the first few months, they naturally try to use Holacracy’s structure to reproduce the structure they’re familiar with. But Holacracy isn’t designed for this old structure, so it feels like they’re trying to fit a square peg in a round hole.
On the surface, Holacracy is just a set of rules. But learning the rules is just the first step in adopting the new system. Beyond the surface, Holacracy incites us to think differently about how authority and accountability flow between roles. This dissonance between old vs. new paradigm is rather obvious during governance meetings, when a team member proposes adding an accountability to a role.
My goal with this article is to give you some tips on how to write roles’ accountabilities by avoiding common pitfalls, so that the work expected from a role is 1) clear, 2) aligned with Holacracy’s distributed authority, and 3) achieves what you’re trying to do.
Here is a list of verbs often used in accountabilities in order to mimic a conventional relationship between roles. I explain why they aren’t the best choice, then give you alternatives.
