📖 Holacracy

The Revolutionary Management System that Abolishes Hierarchy

2014. Brian J. Robertson

Holacracy is a self-management system that focuses on distributed authority and decentralised decision making. It’s very structured (check out the 10,000+ word constitution) but that structure exists to enable unparalleled levels of freedom and authority for people working in Holacratic organisations. And this book is the founder’s tract for spreading the good word to the masses.

Background

The buzz around Holacracy seems to have died down a bit. It reached fever pitch in 2013 when both Medium and Zappos announced they were adopting Holacracy at their companies. Robertson, who had been developing the system with his two co-founders for over 10 years by now, sensed Holacracy’s time had arrived, and got to work on this manuscript which was published a year or so later.

Since then however, it’s been a little bumpy. For one, while the movement continues to grow, it hasn’t added any real flagship names since Zappos and Medium signed up. A recently Quartz piece—entitled Is Holacracy the future of work or a management cult?—talked about a 75-person Google Cloud team who tried to adopt it, but packed it in after 3 months. And some of those who were in are now backing away. Medium announced in 2016 they were “moving beyond” the system and were now “off Holacracy”.

Zappos have stayed the course however, with CEO Tony Hsieh saying his only regret was not doing it sooner. But it’s been a rocky road for them too. In an effort to try and embolden the commitment, Zappos said they weren’t going back and anyone who didn’t like it could walk. 260 of them did, about 18% of the company.

Another hurdle has been that Holacracy has become a system that people love to hate. I was listening to Elad Gil (Author of High Growth Handbook) being interviewed by Kara Swisher the other week and he said “Any time you see, for example, a company adopting Holacracy, it’s like, run for the exits.” Medium highlighted this as a key issue too, stating that they have “been challenged by Holacracy’s public perception”. They argued that the misconceptions being espoused by media reports had made it harder for them to recruit.

I remembering first hearing about Holacracy from this article on First Round in 2014 talking about Medium’s journey with it. I was fascinated by it and was quickly trying to incorporate small bites of it into my role as a manager at the time; separating out people’s multiple roles, and then grouping them in nested circles.

Towards the end of the book there’s a chapter called “If you’re not ready to adopt: Moving toward Holacracy” in which Robertson begrudgingly identifies parts of Holacracy which can be adopted without needing to go two feet in with the whole system. For years people used to ask him if this was possible, to which he would reply “i’m sorry, but no”. However over time he “resolved to build a more satisfying answer to this common question”, and captured it in this chapter. I’m going to focus my review on this chapter because I think these are great tools to use in almost any organisation without needing to commit to something as all consuming as the full Holacracy package.

Change your language, change your culture

Tensions

Holacracy replaces the language of ‘problems’ and ‘solutions’ with ‘tensions’ and ‘tension processing’. A tension, as used in Holacracy, is “a neutral term that simply means the feeling of a specific gap between current reality and a sensed potential”. It points to an opportunity, rather than a problem that needs a solution, and processing conveys the idea of continuous improvement as opposed to arrive at a fixed and final result.

Proposals

Another shift is to have everyone actively offering up proposals when tensions are sensed. Again, they don’t have to be “solutions”, but just ideas to get a conversation started on what could be done to improve the situation.

Objections

The concept of ‘safe to try’ is a core pillar of Holacracy’s approach to decision making. It’s about shifting from consensus to consent, or from all yes’, to no no’s. Robertson urges people not to ask “Does everyone agree?”, but rather “Does anyone object?”. And an objection shouldn’t be just because someone doesn’t agree or like the idea. Holacracy defines an objection as “a reason why this proposal would cause harm or move us backward”.

“Does anyone see any reason why this isn’t safe enough to try, knowing we can revisit the decision if it doesn’t work?”

Dynamic Steering

Holacracy advocates a more adaptive approach to strategy. Using heuristics, and “easy-to-remember rules of thumb that aid moment-to-moment decision making and prioritisation.” Like the use of ‘even over’ statements for example. Shifting the focus from predicting to responding.

Rewrite your role descriptions

One key goal of Holacracy is to make the implicit explicit. Part of this is making clear who owns what, and who is accountable for what.

Example of a role description for HolacracyOne’s “Social Media Butterfly”

In Holacracy a role is not a person, and one person can fill several roles. Decoupling “role and soul” one practice that has been widely adopted outside of the constraints of Holacracy. The idea that people shouldn’t have a single job title that remains flat over time, but rather a portfolio of roles and responsibilities that are frequently updating, is a popular approach in modern org designs. Clarifying your own teams existing roles and responsibilities can be a simple but beneficial exercise that goes beyond the implications of generic job titles.

Work on your organisation, not just in it

A key pillar of Holacracy is that it advocates for businesses to engage in active governance by working on their organisation, not just in it. There are distinct processes for operational work, and for governance work. Reviewing and updating roles as mentioned above is one form of governance. Identifying tensions with your current structure, and coming up with proposals to process them is another example. Time and attention dedicated to improving how your team works together is considered governance, although Holacracy advocates for a more structured process in its prescribed governance meetings.

Streamline your meetings

Robertson claims that the “one thing almost everyone who practises Holacracy remarks on, it’s how much relief they feel thanks to the streamlined, efficient meeting formats”, particularly the tactical meeting. The Quartz article I mentioned earlier commented on how “Medium found high value in the efficiency of tactical meetings; it’s the easiest part of holacracy to adopt.” Some elements common in Holacracy meeting formats include the following.

Check-in and closing rounds

Kicking off a meeting by asking everyone to quickly share what is on their minds that might be distracting them is a tool to make people more present and focused, “ready to move on to business at hand”. People speak one at a time, with no discussion or response allowed. Jennifer Dennard who was part of the Holacracy implementation team at Medium later said that check-in rounds were “one of the rituals that has had the most impact on our culture” link. Closing rounds are about giving people “an opportunity to share reflections on the meeting”.

On-the-fly Agenda building

Robertson advocates for an approach to agenda building on the fly. At the beginning of a meeting, people call out whatever is top of mind for them, that they want to discuss. These are all quickly noted in shorthand and then triaged later in the meeting.

The “What Do You Need?” Approach

When dealing with an agenda item raised by someone, start by asking them “What do you need?”. Keep the focus on resolving their issue only, and not getting diverted into other people’s related concerns. If after the discussion, they can answer affirmatively to the question “Do you have what you need?”, then you can move on. If other people are now not satisfied, their concerns can be dealt with as a separate agenda item. This tactic is inspired by David Allen’s concept of ‘next actions’ from his Getting Things Done, which Robertson is full of praise for throughout the book.

One Tension at a time

As described above, stick to one issue at a time and insist on related concerns becoming separate agenda items to ensure each one gets the attention it needs.

Integrative Decision Making

The “IDM” process is a really interesting meeting format and worth looking into. It’s very structured (of course) and is designed to cut through endless debate on difficult issues. Robertson “offers this final suggestion with caution”, and advises the reader “don’t try to use it for just any old decision—stick to the major ones that don’t need to change often”.

There are a few rounds, and it kicks off with the proposer presenting their proposal. People are then allowed ask clarifying questions. Next, you go around in a circle with everyone giving a reaction one-by-one (but not discussing). The proposer then has the option to amend the proposal based on those reactions, before you go into another round where people are asked for any objections. If not, then you’re done. Decision made. If there was an objection, you work with the objector to try and amend the proposal, and then resubmit it again as a new proposal.

Common across all these meetings are some more basic assumptions about how effective meetings are run. All meetings have a facilitator and a secretary role which can be held by anybody. Often teams elect people to hold these roles for a few weeks before rotating them on to the next person. Meetings use rounds as a way of ensuring everyone’s voice is heard and nobody dominates the conversation. Meetings are structured, and follow a fixed format that is consistent and familiar. And finally meetings have a purpose, everyone goes into a meeting knowing what the goal is and stay focused on it.

There’s lots more, but better to just read the book. One last one I like is when asked for updates on a project in the weekly tactical meeting, the project owner shares only what has changed since the last meeting as opposed to giving a general status update. If nothing has changed, they just simply say so.

I loved this book and continue to be inspired by the work of Robertson and the team. However having never actually worked in an organisation running Holacracy, I can’t offer any real critique. The org design company August are one company I have talked to who run Holacracy. They honour their impressive commitment to transparency by allowing open access to their org chart in Glassfrog (Holacracy’s own application) which you can poke around here.

Holacracy, and seemingly all self-management systems, can be a daunting affair. The final chapter has sections like “toppling the hero” and “uprooting the victim”. The system requires people to take ownership of their problems and fall back to a manager or CEO to guide us through difficult times. As Aimee Groth remarks, Holacracy is “not for the faint of heart” largely because it “asks for us to engage with the terrifying act of transcending our egos”.