The concept Holacracy was created by Brian Robertson as an alternative to traditional hierarchical management and to the not son common horizontal organizational ways. It is an agile, dynamic and strongly results oriented form of organization which, at the same time, has a very relevant structure.

You may wonder, what is it about? How does it work?

To begin with, we must picture the organization as a circle, with other circles within, which also may contain other sub circles. These circles are autonomous teams with work goals.

With Holacracy, there are no jobs. Instead, you will find roles formed by a series of accountabilities –actions the organization needs to get done in order to function-.  These roles are appointed to people who have the necessary skills and resources to develop them.

One person may hold several roles and participate in different circles. Besides, roles are flexible, they may move in and out of circles and accountabilities may vary.  New roles may be created and roles no longer needed may be eliminated. The description of roles changes and becomes updated as the circle works.

These characteristics make roles adjust precisely to the tasks a person develops daily, which is quite a step forward considering that most organizations have jobs that are old fashioned, imprecise and lack relevance in day to day tasks.

Another important aspect of Holacracy is that authority is held by roles and not by people. Therefore, both roles and authority are dynamic elements. There is no chain of command and every circle has a role that represents it.

In other words, authority is distributed and decisions are made by those who are closer to the process that is being developed. Circles are given a goal or a purpose, but they determine how to achieve these goals. Consequently, traditional hierarchy is replaced by circles.

While traditional organizations go through re-organization processes every 4 years approximately, organizations under the concept of Holacracy experience frequent small shifts. Circles and roles are constantly changing, following the goals, needs or the kind of work that has to be done. To pursue change, governance meetings to discuss and re-define roles and processes are developed, usually on a monthly basis.

The last aspect that characterizes Holacracy is that every rule is written down in a document open for all individuals called the Holacracy Constitution. These set of rules are equally applied to all members, making it possible for everyone to know who develops each role and is accountable for each function and process.

If you want to learn more about Holacracy, check the official Holacracy website. You should also visit Blinkist  where they explain how Holacracy works in a very simple and clear way.

Source: Blinkist