Every stage of human development creates radical new ways to organize work. The holy grail for today’s companies is to function so that everybody has a real chance to contribute their gifts. Instead of operating top-down, more power must be distributed throughout the organization, giving individuals and teams freedom to self-manage, while staying aligned to the organization’s purpose.
Achieving this is the promise of Holacracy, a self-management practice for organizations, developed by my guest Brian Robertson using explicitly integral principles.
Over 1000 companies utilize Holacracy today – in healthcare, insurance, banking, retail, technology, nonprofit and government sectors; and in places as diverse as Dubai, Shanghai, Amsterdam, London, Berlin, New York, Bangalore, Las Vegas and rural Africa.
Holacracy enables employees to act more like entrepreneurs and self-direct their work instead of reporting to a manager who tells them what to do.”</em– Tony Hsieh CEO, Zappos
It so happens that I and a group of colleagues at the Integral Institute were guinea pigs in Brian’s laboratory a dozen years ago, trying out his ideas on meeting practices. I remember some truly remarkable results and a flowering of group wisdom that I had never experienced before. It’s great to catch up with Brian now that Holacracy is catching on!
Brian Robertson is a business partner at HolacracyOne, the organization he launched to steward the Holacracy practice and assist other organizations seeking to adopt it.
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