Holacracy

How do groups work? How do organizations work? — I’m writing a new book! It’s going to be out in September. “What is Collective Power: Patterns for a Self-Organized Future about?” The key hypothesis of this book is that there are different levels — individuals, groups, organizations, society. On each of them, there are pulls in two different directions. One is the side of friendly competition and personal interest.

Been a long time coming We glorify founders as the ultimate heroes of a successful business story. …

“I’ve been taught everything but emotional intelligence” These are the words of Jay-Z in an interview with Kevin Hart, during which Jay-Z pinpoints the fractures that happen when people in close relationships aren’t able to communicate with honesty and emotional authenticity. He describes the ways that different people will hear, and therefore experience very different messaging from…

The Medium company is famous for attempting to implement the “Holacracy” employee-friendly management system before 2016 when the company abandoned it. You might think that this was an experiment in employee-control, but it was not. When the Medium.com company’s Head of Operations Andrew “Andy” Doyle announced in 2016 that the…

There’s another way Problems get thrown at businesses every second of every day. The most common type of problem solving approach I’ve experienced in 15+ years of working in business is a version of this : If it’s a big enough problem, the boss gets involved. Now the boss needs…

A few years ago, I was asked to speak about autonomy at an event in Birmingham. Before the event, I looked up the definition of the word and found this: Autonomy comes from ‘auto’ meaning “self” and nomos meaning “custom” or “law.” This reflects a person’s right to self-government or…

Why they’re opposites People assume leadership and power are the same thing. I’d argue they’re opposites. Leaders want to create the right circumstances so decision-making is made by the ones with the right expertise. People seeking power want to be able to call all the shots. Leaders want to make…

Meetings are here to stay, but not in the form they’re in today. I’ve never been in a professional setting where meetings were well seen. In fact it’s quite the opposite. Calendars free of meetings have become the new flex, the sign that leaders have achieved the freedom they worked…

I joined the healthcare startup, Ubie about a year ago. The company has been implementing Holacracy since 2019. …