Starting point
In the team, activities and processes have to be carried out. The work and how to do it are clarified together in the team. The basic principle is that each team member has a lot of autonomy in his or her role to shape the work as he or she sees fit. This is done within a framework of clear and explicit agreements that are constantly adjusted based on advancing insight.
What do we find strong about the concept (book)?
The most pronounced feature of Holacracy is distributed authority over all team members and its dynamic interpretation.
Responsibilities and authority are clearly described in roles. In a concrete role meeting, people discuss what is expected of each role. If necessary, the interpretation is adjusted and improved. The manager no longer has the last word, but creates great involvement in the team. Everyone shows leadership and ownership, within their own role and responsibility.
Problems and frustrations (we call them ‘tensions’) are approached constructively. These tensions are a form of information in which reality gives us feedback: the area of tension where you are now and where you could/would like to be. Each team member becomes a sensor that can pick up and report tensions. Instead of arguing about it, we want to learn from it and change something. Tensions are no longer given a negative or positive label, but are a neutral source of information offering opportunities for improvement.
In addition to the role consultations (a regular, monthly discussion, about responsibilities and powers within the team, a helicopter view), there is also the work consultation (a weekly operational consultation with the aim of regularly and effectively coordinating with each other, i.e. getting in the middle of the work). All powerful: we address each other on the role and no longer on the person.
The way decisions are made is innovative. Checking decisions against the questions ‘Is it workable?’, ‘Is it safe enough to try it out?’ makes you move forward faster as a group. After all, you can (continue to) make adjustments at any time.
The structure of both role and work meetings is situated in the ‘here and now’, follows a set pattern and is tightly monitored by a Facilitator. The systematics ensure that awareness of the team's own functioning is strong. Moreover, what requires real attention is visualised together (via a project board).
The roles that get and keep the process going (Lead link, Facilitator, Secretary) are powerful, simultaneously necessary and provide R³ (calm, rhythm and regularity).
What raises questions?
The Holacracy method requires formal endorsement of a ‘constitution’. This seems too rigid to us. We believe a strong personal commitment from all participants can be equally binding. General jargon, by the way, also feels artificial and heavy.
Some caveats also on applying the rather strict rules ... is there a danger that the well-intentioned discipline will become an ‘overshot rigidity’?
Trying it out then ... !
At Stanwick, we started working on the concept ourselves and within one team. Searching, exploring and learning.
- Making a personal commitment together as a team
- Mapping roles and responsibilities, from current reality
- Learning to distinguish between work and role consultation
- Learning to name frustrations or dissatisfactions as ‘healthy tensions’
- Allocate roles
- Systematise work and role consultations
There is a lot less room to hide. Transparency cuts both ways: you know better what others are doing, but your own priorities and progress are just as visible. Talk about a confrontational ‘tension’.
... and in the process of discovering what it means for us, but already we feel an increased commitment to the team event and a calmness in the way we interact with each other. We are also finding that it makes sense to work in short time cycles, rather than thinking we can predict the distant future.
And of course we still have questions
- What do you do when things don't go the way they should ... or do we discover that along the way ... advancing insight, right?
- How much of a team do you need to be, how much commonality do we have ?
- Does this also work for virtual teams that often work from a literal physical distance?
- How do we scale this up to the rest of our (small) organisation?
However far the journey leads us, we have an endless source of energy at our disposal: excitement!
