nomade0

You're right Flenser. In fact there is typically more structure in a company running with Holacracy vs. a traditional management hierarchy. Or maybe more accurately, the structure is clearer and more explicit with Holacracy at play.

I wrote a post about this: "Holacracy vs. Hierarchy vs. Flat Orgs" https://blog.holacracy.org/holacracy-vs-hierarchy-vs-flat-or...

Thanks richmarr for paying attention to the details instead of swallowing the press' simplistic statements :)

"This might seem pedantically trivial"... you were right ;)

I've explained the difference further in a blog post: "Holacracy vs. Hierarchy vs. Flat Orgs" https://medium.com/holacracyone-blog/d1545d5dffa7

Catherine, you are confusing "Holacracy" for a generic term that means "flat organizations" and "lack of structure".

Holacracy® is a specific system with clear rules (available here: http://holacracy.org/constitution ), and is far more structured than what you describe in your article. See for example the structure of my organization running with Holacracy: https://glassfrog.holacracy.org/organizations/5

It's mistake to associate Holacracy to flat organizations — Holacracy is actually FARTHER AWAY from a flat organization than it is from a conventional hierarchy. It pushes very strongly about the looseness and lack of clarity around accountabilities in a structure-less org. It even pushes against the lack of clarity in conventional hierarchies as well. Overall, Holacracy instills more structure in an organization, not less.

Ev Williams, who uses it at Medium, puts it this way:

"Holacracy is the opposite of the cliché way to run a startup. People think "freedom, no job description, everybody does everything, it's totally flat, and that's cool because we're all down with those rules". But actually that creates tons of anxiety and inefficiency, and various modes of dysfunction, whether we have to build consensus around every decision, or I'm gonna do a land grab for power... People romanticize startup cultures, but I know it's fairly rare that people in startups say "this is it, it is amazing and everybody is super-productive and going along". So in Holacracy, one of the principles is to make the implicit explicit — tons of it is about creating clarity: who is in charge of what, who is taking what kind of decision — and there is also a system for defining that, and changing that, so it's very flexible at the same time." (source: https://medium.com/p/89fb713a8786 )

So... I'm afraid your assessment of Holacracy is really backward. I'm not saying Holacracy is perfect, but it's certainly not flawed in the ways you describe.

@oliviercp

You got it right. I work with Holacracy and I can confirm... everything you read Holacracy being blamed for, as in Catherine Bracy's article, is actually not against Holacracy.

They think it's against Holacracy, because they mistakenly believe that Holacracy simply means "flat org". Then they build an entire argument around this error...

Since the Zappos story, people talk about "holacracy" here and there. In reality, there are few organizations actually using Holacracy® — the system defined in the constitution you link to. Github isn't part of them, Valve either. Zappos and Medium are.

I work with HolacracyOne, the company behind Holacracy. We definitely have a lot of work to do to explain Holacracy outside of our trainings & consulting services - we're a young company and haven't focused on that as much so far, but it's definitely something on our radar (especially after this press storm).

To answer your question, the secret sauce of Holacracy is the Holacracy Constitution – it replaces the CEO in deciding how decisions get made and how we organize. See: www.youtube.com/watch?v=31MljhiyxZ8

Also, you might be interested in two blog posts published in the past couple days in reaction to the often-inaccurrate press: - "Five Misconceptions About Holacracy" https://medium.com/about-holacracy/da84d8ba15e1 - "Holacracy at Zappos" by a Zappos' employee: http://rianschmidt.wordpress.com/2014/01/07/holacracy-at-zap...

Yes, ROLES are still there, definitely. See "Five Misconceptions About Holacracy" https://medium.com/about-holacracy/da84d8ba15e1 and a post by a Zappos employee about Holacracy: http://rianschmidt.wordpress.com/2014/01/07/holacracy-at-zap...

Yep, it's definitely the risk when you get rid of an explicit structure – it gets replaced by a new, implicit one. In contrast, Holacracy doesn't just get rid of hierarchy, it REPLACES it with another structure – and in many ways, it's MORE structure (unlike what the press says). See more in these two blog posts that were published in reaction to the press buzz and the misinformation: - Five Misconception About Holacracy: https://medium.com/about-holacracy/da84d8ba15e1 - Zappos at Holacrach (by Zappos' Head of Labs Tech): http://rianschmidt.wordpress.com/2014/01/07/holacracy-at-zap...

I work with HolacracyOne, the company behind Holacracy. It's not as simple as Lead Link = Manager. You can find more in this video if you're interested in the difference: http://holacracy.org/resources/the-lead-link-role-in-holacra...

I'd say the largest at this time would be Agencies of Change, 200+ employees (though it was a few years ago, I don't know now). We're currently working with one significantly bigger client, but we let them announce it first.

No, the processes themselves are not explained in this video. This other one explains "tactical meetings": http://youtu.be/8NrsVBATZCM

That said if you want the technicalities of the process, you'll find everything in the constitution (not as entertaining, but more accurate): http://holacracy.org/constitution

Yes, it's exactly what it means. He's the "manager" of his roles, and within the authority granted to this roles, he can make autocratic decisions that others can't veto (not even the "Lead Link"). And it's true for every employee in every role: they have full authority to exercise their role's authority.

Of course you need a way to modify the roles' definitions; there is a governance process for that, at each team level, and any team member can propose modifying the roles, not only the "Lead Link" (contrary to what this quote mistakenly suggests). I hope this clarifies a bit.

I have to say I agree with your point 1) in general.

But not with 2). Holacracy is not just a set of vague principles that you swear to apply as best as you can, or some bolt-on process to add to your box. It's a completely different way of governing a company, a different power structure, and its rules are specific and spelled out: http://holacracy.org/constitution

Whether it works or not is another question, but at least it's different. Then, sure, it's not a silver bullet: http://youtu.be/gltN3NuY5dc

In my experience, there are less non-profits formally working with Holacracy mostly because they can't afford hiring the consultants to help them adopt it. And it's not easy to adopt on your own - it goes against a lot of oft-entrenched habits. That said I know that many have tried, though I don't know how it's going because I'm not even indirectly involved.

Interestingly, the distinction between for- and non-profit is less relevant with Holacracy. The bottom line is effectively the (explicit, written-down) purpose of the organization. More on that here: http://holacracy.org/blog/for-profit-non-profit-for-purpose

All this insight from reading the constitution? I'm impressed

Well, technically, I'll grant you that it's impossible to rule out. IMO it's highly unlikely that someone came up with these rules: http://holacracy.org/constitution, but I'm not going to argue that, the novelty is not my main point.

I'm interested in whether it's working. From what I've seen, it is. Perfect? Of course not. The be all and end all of running a business? No, you still need to do work. But it's a much better framework to do so that anything else I've seen. Many people seem to share this opinion, too, and it seems to help them to their work better (and enjoy it more). That's pretty cool in my book, I don't need to convince the world that it's right for everybody. If you find the same benefits with another system, or a similar one from thousands years ago, who cares, run with it.

Yes, yes, and yes. I work with Holacracy and I will confirm that the techniques described from Stirman's experience before joining Medium (chatting with employees, SCARF, etc.) are not to be put in the same bag as Holacracy.

It doesn't even make that much sense to compare them -- these techniques are bolt-ons - more or less useful practices to make do with the challenges inherent to a conventional structure. On the contrary, Holacracy is a new meta-structure for how power is distributed, how decision-making is distributed, with different channels available to effect changes - a new "social operating system", really.

In my experience, having my manager use techniques like SCARF to "better reward me" is nowhere near as powerful and empowering as having no manager to solve my problems, because there is a system that allows me to address them myself.

-Olivier Compagne

Heads up, this is not the actual Holacracy constitution, but a copy of the "Plain English" version, which might have been further modified on Github. The official constitution is here: http://holacracy.org/constitution

That said, it's cool to see folks copying it :)

Based on what I read about Valve, it is not surprising that they have a lot of politics going on. That's the issue with flat structures - when authorities and accountabilities are unclear, you need make alliances (seen as "cliques" from the exterior) to get your projects moving forward.

On the contrary, Holacracy has processes that push for clarity. It distinguishes people and their roles, and provides forums (e.g., clear meeting processes) to address misalignments and conflicts between roles, in service of the company's purpose. It's well explained in this 3-min video http://youtu.be/9U_XDin5tjI

Disclosure; I work with HolacracyOne. Hope that clarifies the difference a bit

If you want to hear more about Holacracy, there is a webinar this afternoon at 1:30 PST: http://holacracy.org/events/intro-to-holacracy-free-webinar-... - Disclaimer: I work with HolacracyOne, the company behind the model. I'd love to address several comments I see on this thread (and will later), but I'd recommend the webinar for anyone genuinely interested in a comprehensive understanding. It's hard to discuss a 'part' in any depth without understanding the whole.

Thanks pdubroy for finally pointing this out. There is no data to back up the author's hypothesis, so it's just that, a (why-not-plausible) hypothesis. Any discussion further should start with "If this is true, then..."