Noted hierarchy expert Laurence Johnston Peter once said, “In a hierarchy, every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence.” Very deep words if you spend a moment to think about it. We have often thought of success in our professional lives as a function of who we are and the titles we posses. A CEO is obviously more successful in life than a Senior VP, a Director more successful than a manager. Titles have driven us to perform. We work for promotions, and while theoretically promotions and titles are linked with the quality of work we do, it is mostly never practically the case. I work so that I get promoted from Manager to Senior Manager.
Though a part of is subconsciously expecting that the promotion will automatically bring better work, I don’t want the promotion for that reason. I want the promotion for the title it brings.
Is this necessarily the best approach? Maybe, maybe not. At this point, let me to introduce you to the concept of Holacracy.
What is it?
“Holacracy is a social technology or system of organizational governance in which authority and decision-making are distributed throughout a fractal holarchy of self-organizing teams rather than being vested at the top of a hierarchy”. In simple words, Holacracy means no job titles and no “managers”. Decisions and work is done as a social organization and it not based in our traditional understanding of hierarchy. Groups are formed with members and these members divide the tasks and objectives of the company within themselves and the members are the key drivers of those deliverables. Further sub groups may exist which are further provided detailed tasks and at the end of this, the group decides whether particular members performed their responsibilities in a manner.
How does it work?
A lot of people think that Holacracy is a process of no hierarchy, whereas, in my opinion is that Holacracy is hierarchy on drugs. Holacracy puts a lot of belief into democratic procedures, having consensual discussions that lead to decisions and given importance to everyone’s view.
HOLOCRACY
25
PARADIGM Nourishing the Intellect