Holacracy – an organizational operating model

HOLACRACY CIRCLES AT ZAPPOS

An article in the New York Times explains how holacracy was embraced by Tony Hsieh, the late CEO of Zappos, and Evan Williams, who helped found Twitter and started Medium.com, the publishing platform.The holacratic system is based on small cells of people called circles, each ofwhich convenes a weekly meeting to discuss tactics, and then a monthly one for more strategic/governance issues. At governance meetings, everyone gets a chance to speak.

First, the meeting ‘triages any administrative and logistical issues’, which can mean yelling out any type of personal concern, such as ‘Joe needs to leave early’.

Once these are sorted, anyone at the meeting can propose something called a ‘tension’ or an area of concern, and a skilled facilitator makes space for participants to ask clarifying questions, followed by – and separated from – reactions. Here, any type of reaction is welcome, ‘from intellectual critiques to emotional outbursts’.

After that comes a round of amend and clarify, followed by an objection round which can get quite heated. Then it’s integration followed by another round of objections, ‘to address any new objections to the Clarification of the Tension and the Reactions to it that have surfaced during the Integration’.

The session ends with the closing round, in which every participant is invited to offer a closing reflection regarding how to improve the next meeting. ‘After this, there is, explicitly, “no discussion” (Heffernan, 2016)