Holacracy: A Radical New Approach to Management | Brian Robertson | TEDxGrandRapids

In his engaging talk, Brian Robertson explains Holacracy, a complete system for structuring a company without a management hierarchy, yet with clear accountability, authority and agility.
Brian Robertson is an experienced entrepreneur, CEO and the creator of Holacracy, a management system for governing and running organizations without a typical management hierarchy. A variety of global leaders have implemented Holacracy, including Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh, Twitter Co-Founder Ev Williams, and the best-selling author of Getting Things Done, David Allen. Brian previously founded a software development firm that won numerous awards for both fast business growth and innovative people practices. He is the author of the upcoming book, Holacracy: The New Management System for a Rapidly Changing World.
This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at ted.com/tedx

[@LD-wf2yt]

So we have Kazuo Inamori's Amoeba Management, Infosys' Micro-changes, Haier's "Rendanheyi" i.e. micro-enterprises and micro-communities, Buurtzog's network with coaches/mentors not managers, Viisi's Beyond Holocracy, David Marquet's Intent-Based Leadership plus "Leadership is Language" (a must read), 1% improvements from British Cycling, Joy Inc, POOGI from The Theory of Constraints, Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic's book "Why Do So Many Incompetent Men Become Leaders?", Open Book Management etc. I still believe we should wrap everything up with the concept I call Cascaded Leadership. It starts with the Relevance (more than Purpose), then cascades down (includes all of the above) creating a Flow (alignment) that delivers Value. We all talk about change and yet we all seem to be trapped with the idea of "organization". Organizations are just another "circle". Why think of an organization as living in a lifeboat?

[@Ric_S_C]

Great idea but so many questions unanswered. How about the distribution of resources and budget? Who owns that? How about promoting or letting go of people? Wouldn't people owing the budget/resource allocation and promotions/firing be the ones with power in here too? Would that lead to politics too but in a less vertical but more horizontal manner, but still politicking? In any organisation, resources are limited and the distribution of those resources define its direction and power structures. In any case, this seems interesting and I'd love to learn more about how the orgs implementing this are tackling those issues.

[@wolfieyu6433]

You can go and take his training courses. I'm on my way of becoming a certified coach in this practice. Within the limit of 20 mins, one cannot hope he answers EVERYTHING. In short, I would forward certain terms for you to refer to: constitution, governance, domain, role, accountability....You are welcome to attend a webinar or a one-day taster course.

[@TrIs1493]

Distribution of budgets: organize budget games (have an external company facilitate it to avoid a conflict of interest) Promotion shouldn't be discussed since there is a distributed authority. Besides, you can take up as much roles as you can handle. It's about what work you can do, not what position you have. Payment: everyone should have the same base wage. From there you can discuss whether or not someone deserves bonus or something. Firing people: first look if the roles that certain employee has, fits him/her and adjust from there. If there is a conflict, first try conflict management before talking about a resignation. If someone wants to leave, let him/her leave.

[@123axel123]

Holacracy and Fredric Laloux are snakeoil salesmen. They want you to take courses but there is nothing there except half-baked bs. You will never get the answer because Brian Robertson has not thought that far.

[@ClarkPotter]

@@123axel123 It's already employed in organizations. It's a pretty novel proposal, and open to evolutionary refinement itself. It may work better for some organizations than others. It takes experiment to tell. I get the sense that no matter when or where you found yourself, you'd oppose progress there as well.

[@123axel123]

@@ClarkPotter give me one example of a for profit company employing more than 1000 people. You cannot. The idea is 20 years old. Fortunately this snake oil is now out of fashion. One example, I'm listening

[@faderlader]

I have to say my brother is an amazing man and I finally get what his company is about

[@AbigailSmith]

So cool that this was in Grand Rapids!

[@MrKasnif]

I love this concept. Hard to implement in my opinion but well worth the effort. It worked for Zappos.

[@headieddieful]

kasnif pierre noomap

[@LOGICZOMBIE]

GREAT WORK

[@simova1]

This is what is done in Quality Circles which is used for quality improvement and customer satisfactions.

[@MPowerSubie12]

You have to remember companies like Zappos are not standard companies. They have a CEO whose innovative and creative looking for ways to change things constantly. That's the first step to change. The second is that this is all possible only through funding as such that he is able to provide and not many others can or are willing to do so.

[@ilmarinen79]

Probably easier to just form real autonomous units inside a company. And that is not for most types of people. Most aren't able to carry a responsibility or actually think on your own and just want to follow some rules given to them.

[@mrhallman64]

Those set of rules you mentioned like not taking you neighbors car, only works as much as people following the rules and without enforcement of the rules there are no rules

[@Theembodimentchannel]

Hi Brian, cool to see my messy org image here (thanks for asking) and love your stuff, can you add a credit to me for the mage as its getting widely ripped off now. Pop up and in description would be good. Thanks, Mark Walsh

[@verarchy]

Oh, you mean you don't have the image anymore?

[@kakopa333]

Also makes me think of the emergent success of gig work. People value autonomy and flexibility.

[@AtlantislearningcommunityHome]

It seems to me the key to distributed authority is "Transparency." I have no problem giving up authority to others as long as I have transparency to what they are really doing. And, Transparency should not be a problem for organizations since the organization owns the data anyway. Am I off track here?

[@PippyPappyPatterson]

radical transparency

[@telecommunicationslawandre6751]

@@PippyPappyPatterson Why "radical transparency?" How does that apply?

[@dcho8638]

Transparency is ability to see the reality as is, but v all seems to b bound by subjective realities. Even when v r the boss, it may seem to us that v wr transparent whereas others wr still thinking v wr not. So how can v demand something v r not able to offer. So unless v could purify the subject of it's respective prejudices, tendencies, v won't b able get rid of subjective realities per se.

[@DmSujaEntrepren]

How do we implement this in startups?

[@pianowhizz]

Now that boys and girls, is actually 'intelligent design' :)

[@rohit2093]

What are some of the assumptions about human behaviour here?

[@shekibnastoh3478]

A beginning it worked, but people who where unhappy left the company we went to a big loss

[@petitio_principii]

If you and some of your neighbors shared a car to work, there would be way less traffic. Some things work out best with top-down planning and are indefinitely postponed while favoring bottom-up emergent dysfunction.

[@francoisherrault2277]

True, if people don't feel a need to do the "things". But if they don't feel the need, it will badly work even when top-down planned. People educated and used to take initiatives, will have a better life in an Holocracy environment.

[@SebastianSenning]

And if keeping traffic down was the only important factor you would have a point. Carpooling would lead to less traffic but also more discussions and compromises and less flexibility and autonomy for the individuals in the car. Factors that people apparently seem to value as important when running their lives. Maybe they could be important for companies as well.

[@n3whous3]

The biggest limitation is still the human factor. E.g. incompetence but some other doesn't see it, then if the role is given to the incompetent or inexperienced man, things are fucked up. After watching this, as i see, this would be useful only in parts of a project. Normal flow in scrum for instance and given roles for IMPROVEMENTS. not the daily work, just improvements. Daily tasks and the project flow needs overseers, who can decide who has to do what things. It doesnt make sense that you break down a couple of roles for some person then you see, that someones are overwhelmed, while others have nearly zero work at some weeks. Second: more people can see drawbacks of one's decision. That is simply fucked up that a role is totally giving authority for a person AND only for that person. Why not including always at least 2 or 3 people for one role? Maybe the book gives answers to these, but as I see it, this is fucked up and only because of the human factor.

[@AnonYMouse-ky4sg]

n3whous3 Yes, the book covers these questions.

[@antoniog9814]

I don't believe that into story. In aviation, fuel is simply never referred to as gas.

[@ralphgoepel5520]

excellent, I like that nearly libertarian approach!

[@klauszimmermannmayo2390]

Yeah, this is great. It's probably the most principled communist approach to organizational structure that I've seen yet.

[@deomel]

Interesting concepts, but many unanswered questions. The comparison with the human body is a failure. The human cells are not totally autonomous, and the human body would not go anywhere without the central nervous system - he totally ignored it. He also ignored cancer, what is what happens when cells grow in a disorganized way... what can happen easily without control. Relying in a self-regulatory system will require exceptional levels of maturity and trust. And how compensation and rewards work in a system like this?

[@JamesMathison]

But what's you're point? The existence of cancer doesn't discredit these ideas about organisation structure! It was just an analogy, and all analogies can only go so far before they unravel.

[@aramkhachatrian7361]

I think the body analogy is appropriate. To realize it just don't consider the brain as a "boss". Instead look at it as at a unit having its own role. This unit also consisting of cells each having its own role. There's no central point of control. Body management is indeed distributed.

[@elmo9715]

You should consider things in matters of genetics here... I think... The DNA being the constitution.

[@keiguluv]

I had the same thought. The comparison with the human body is not appropriate. There is a higher order coming from the brain and other organs about how cells should be behaving and what the body needs at any given time.

[@NoHawkNoMiss]

Not really: every cell/organ has both inputs and outputs, and there is no partition of them such that signals flow from only one partition to the other. E.g., the brain receives hormones generated by various glands that cause thoughts to pay attention or drift away. The body is a massive collaboration of parts. The only hierarchies are spatial (e.g., body, organs, cells, organelles), for organizational not authority purposes, and that is analogous to the hierarchy of roles in holocracy.

[@willem-janvos7938]

Posted the English version of my blog I wrote last year about Holacracy (a summary of the book using an Infographic), see: visueelhr.wordpress.com/2016/12/11/vision-of-holacracy/

[@aa911111]

I think it can only suite limited no of orgs. Ppl are different in terms of experience and knowledge

[@francoisherrault2277]

People can change

[@nurseq783]

This a great method..I'm not sure this is effective for healthcare settings..especially it involves 24-hour direct physical contact with clients/patients...

[@matthewguzman6806]

Why not?

[@SebastianSenning]

I think Heiligenfeldt Hospital in Germany and Buurtzoorg in the Netherlands have ideas that are similar to this and seems to be working in healthcare.

[@marvelaturraz5405]

Regardless of the merits of this, to promote Holacracy puts it in direct competition to Sociocracy, which effectively diminishes the ability of either to gain traction. The noble choice IMO is to bury Holacracy. I'm truly sorry to say that, because I know what I'm proposing is extremely harsh and would be quite tragic, and you certainly meant well to develop it. But sometimes it is necessary to prune the tree, no matter how painful it may be to do so. The world needs to evolve into Sociocracy (or Holacracy), and at this point, it seems to me, we need to give our consent and choose ONE, so that we as a global group have best chance to steward humanity into a better paradigm. Sociocracy is already ahead and further developed, in my understanding. However, if I am missing any key point which would make me fundamentally wrong in what I've said here, I apologise. Please inform me--and thus the rest of us--what that is specifically, if that's the case. It would be most welcomed and appreciated. Thank you.

[@123axel123]

Who cares about name if idea is that great? Fact is that it is all snake oil. Not decentralisation, etc. But the specific ideas pushed by soft consultants that have nothing better to do

[@philiphorky9090]

He made an error when using his travel plans as an example of people organizing without a boss. All those people he came in contact with, airplanes, coffee shops, taxis, hotels, are all ordered by a management hierarchy.

[@gtm1311]

Exactly what I thought. It sounds like a salesman selling something dodgy. There’s a reason that businesses use a top down system.

[@Trigy100]

This will not work in all industry, may be limited with some places

[@Coolguy8623]

When the Bosses are all Blind

[@harrietstewart-jones6647]

Sorry, I disagree about the cell analogy. There definitely *are* "boss" cells!

[@elijohnson4425]

I could see a variation of this to replace democracy.

[@headieddieful]

How in da holon am I just now seeing this video!?

[@nicolacolumbine1651]

Please share this with Donald J Trump!

[@sampriddy8005]

I see no difference in this verses the typical organizational corporate structure. Mothered are rules, follow them. That's all it is. Only thing he has done is try to make you feel like you don't travel a boss. Watch what happens when you do what you want and still get fired.

[@francoisherrault2277]

You have misunderstood the whole concept.

[@potod10]

Sam Priddy I recommend reading The Startup Way by Eric Ries so you can see how revolutionary this managerial approach is. Its really that amazing

[@andybaldman]

@@francoisherrault2277 Agreed. Most of the people who criticize this type of system don't understand it at all. But when you've worked in one, you'll never want to go back to a traditional hierarchy.

[@luddity]

Impossible to pass the buck this way?

[@josephvalentine4820]

This feels very similar to the socialist means of production. Where as before (in Capitalism) it was power pyramid, now it is a democracy. Good to see people embracing Marx’s ideas without even realizing it. Hopefully soon people won’t be afraid of his name and can embrace his ideas

[@albertloan396]

This is precisely the antidote to Marx's centralized national economic planning. Instead, read the work of F. A. Hayek. It is Hayek's insights about emergent order, the distribution of local knowledge, and the necessity of distributed decision making that is at the heart of Holacracy's practice.

[@josephvalentine4820]

@@albertloan396, This is the greatest misconception about socialist ideology, especially in reference to communism. Marx WAS NOT a proponent of a strong government. He, instead, preferred the state to be taken by the proletariat to be stripped of all but it's most crucial programs where it would then lean as far Anarcho-Communist as seen feasible. Simply put, Marx would NOT have agreed with the USSR's authoritarianism. I believe he even wrote much about the failures of some socialist revolutions during his time because they trusted their government too much. I wouldn't quote me on it tho

[@albertloan396]

I'd love to hear more about how you understand the process by which government is to be "taken by the proletariat." Unfortunately, I don't use KZbin as a means of discussing complex issues. Better to connect with me on Facebook. @@josephvalentine4820

[@andybaldman]

This is the democratization of the workplace. And it does incorporate aspects that Marx believed in, but without the negatives that resulted from communism. The future will be a hybrid of Marx's ideas, and other things that will make it not today's capitalism, and not the communism and socialism of the past. Just like blockchain tech incorporates radical decentralization that provides transparency, this does something similar, but in the workspace.

[@Manny-ok7fv]

Would never work.

[@BRIANMORGANNOW]

Hidden & camouflaged the god called money.....

[@mrhallman64]

Sounds like a mess.

[@maigotholesen]

I think rules is out of date. I do not believe we need rules for building up a succesful business. Th company of course need to find a structure together and agree on a vision/goal for the company but rules never led to any good. If people learn to self-management, why do we then need rules to do the right things?

[@fardrum]

you need some rules when people do things together, there's no way do create collaboration with zero rules, you'll still need rule to engage each other, to take turns in expression your opinions. The problem is not about rules, it's about how many rules you really need and how you structure them with the correct trade off between depth (how empowering one single rule is into allowing you to make many alternative choices) and complexity (how many rules you need to remember to actually perform in an organization)