Managing the Expectations of Holacracy
The purpose of the 2019 Holacracy Forum was to “reduce the pain and increase the ease of Holacracy”. There are many reasons Holacracy adoptions can be difficult and stressful, but I believe the vast majority of these challenges stem from the same source:
The gap between what people expect of Holacracy and what they actually experience
If a movie trailer suggests that a film is hilarious and action-packed, yet the only good parts were the few scenes already shown in the trailer, you would feel disappointed; like you wasted money going to watch it and were misled. You probably wouldn’t ever want to see another movie in that franchise, you will poorly rate the movie, and will be far more skeptical of how good a trailer suggests a film is. Now, imagine if the movie trailer bluntly said, “It has a few funny parts and a little action, but is otherwise fairly basic.” You might be less inclined to go see the movie, but if you do, you won’t be disappointed at all. You will have received exactly what you expected, will be more inclined to give it a good review, and will put more trust in trailers. There was no misleading, no embellishment — just straightforward honesty.
This huge difference in how good or bad your experience of a movie can be is entirely the result of missed expectations. If you don’t receive what you were expecting, you will feel betrayed, let down, and angry. This is often how Holacracy adoptions make us feel. Holacracy might suggest: “No more hierarchy or bureaucracy. Everyone as equal power and can solve any problem.” These statements can be true, but in my experience, they are very rarely achieved or take many years for an organization to get to a point where they are. This leads people to feel even worse than they did before about the organization; not because Holacracy is terrible, but because they are not seeing the things they were promised.
This is what it means to manage expectations. It’s ensuring you only say it will go as good as you know it will be. It’s setting a standard you know will be met. However, before you can begin working on managing expectations, you need to first understand one thing:
Perception Is Reality
We often have the instinct to correct other people’s complaints about Holacracy. Maybe they think it’s too confusing or that Lead Links are just managers with a different title. We might spend days or months trying to educate them on why it makes sense if they just study it further or that they have misconceptions that are simply inaccurate. In my experience, this has rarely worked out in my favor and instead pushes them further away from wanting to learn about Holacracy. It is important to understand that what a person perceives is what is real for them. If I think Holacracy is confusing, no amount of you telling me I’m wrong will undo that. If I think managers still exist, you can’t change my mind by elaborating on the nuances and details of the difference between managers and Lead Links. If it is true to me, then I will only see it as truth. Thankfully, issues of perception can be addressed in one of two ways:
- Acknowledge it
Approach a situation with empathy and understanding. If someone says, “Holacracy is confusing”, you respond with, “I absolutely understand. It is pretty confusing at times. It’s unrealistic to expect you to understand it all right away. For now, how can I help you grasp it a bit better?”
2. Fix the problem
Remove the reason causing them to perceive the situation as they are. If someone says, “Holacracy is confusing”, you adjust the constitution, change your company’s governance, or take other steps to objectively simplify things and make the system as a whole less confusing.
Only after you accept the fact that perception is reality for every individual can you then begin to work on managing the expectations. This too is done in two steps: avoiding confusion and setting realistic expectations.
I. Avoiding confusion
Holacracy (like any new change) is bound to be confusing for some people, but how you talk about it can make it substantially less confusing. Here are some tips:
- Remove anything that isn’t necessary
a. Look through the content you teach and completely remove anything that meets any of these criteria:
b. It is likely to be forgotten very quickly
c. It is too much information to learn all at once
d. It can’t be immediately implemented
e. It is unlikely to be useful for many months
Training should consist of only what is valuable and is easy to remember and utilize. By removing everything else, you save time and energy, giving you more effective training.
2. No new language
This is especially hard in Holacracy, but teaching someone an entirely new dictionary of words in addition to them having to learn a whole new system can make it all more confusing and difficult to learn. Use Holacracy-specific wording as little as possible while still making sure they understand what it is.
3. No explanation should take more than 2 sentences
Tell yourself that if it takes you more than 1 or 2 sentences to explain a concept, you don’t understand it well enough to be teaching it. This ensures things are easy to comprehend for your audience, will allow you to more easily speak to a wider audience in less time, and prevents you from unnecessarily over explaining something.
4. Make it relatable and tailored to your audience
Only use metaphors that you know everyone in the room can relate with and ensure everyone who could possibly be in your audience can comprehend the complexities of what you are talking about. Rather than talking about the logistics of city infrastructure tailored to those with Master’s Degrees, refer to traffic annoyances anyone on the street would understand.
II. Setting realistic expectations
Once you’ve eliminated most of the confusion, you can work on setting realistic expectations. This means balancing the ideal future with the current reality, which is done by only setting expectations that you know will be true. This is how you do that:
- Always be honest
You need to be honest about everything, even if it doesn’t make you or the company look good. The truth will always get out, and if you lie to someone to maintain good PR or make a sale, employees will know you lied to them and will lose trust in you and interest in Holacracy.
2. Call it like it is
Be proactive as often as possible about where the company excels and where it lacks. People get skeptical and resistant when things sound too good to be true, so be upfront and say, “Our company is really good at X, but we struggle a lot with Y and Z.”
3. Know that it isn’t as easy as it sounds
Even with these tips, successfully making these changes and seeing results isn’t easy and will require patience, time to learn, and plenty of mistakes along the way. This is helpful for you to know as a change agent so that you don’t expect to solve everything overnight, but also so your audience doesn’t expect to be Holacracy masters overnight.
I have seen night and day difference between how I used to implement Holacracy and how I introduce changes now, from how easy it is to teach, to how quickly people understand and willingly adopt the change. This incredible change is all because I understand that perception is reality, then I avoid confusion and set realistic expectations. I recommend you try the same, even if it isn’t nearly as easy as it sounds.
by Paul Walker,
Employee Experience Consultant at Theory Why Consulting, LLC
